Database Guides: Computer Science Collection (from Proquest)

Proquest Computer Science Collection

Index primarily for finding journal articles. A premium resource for those who need access to worldwide, comprehensive coverage of computer science topics, ranging from computer security to web commerce. Includes some full-text. 

Date coverage from 1981 onwards. Updated monthly.

Types of publications covered: scholarly journals, conference proceedings, technical reports, trade journal/newsletter items, patents, books, and press releases.

The Computer Science Collection is created from:

Computer and Information Systems Abstracts database (1981 - )

Plus

ProQuest Computer Science Journals - covers more than 1,500 discipline-specific publications, many in full text

Use primarily to find journal articles in the following subject areas:

Artificial intelligence; Computer applications; Computer programming; Computer systems organisation; Computing milieux; Hardware; Information systems; Mathematics of computing; Software engineering

Login to the Portal and then choose Computing Science Collection (from Proquest) from the A-Z List of Online Resources.

See Successful Search Techniques.

There is an Easy Search Option but we recommend selecting the Advanced Search.

From the Advanced Search screen select the type of search you wish to conduct from the drop-down box
e.g. Choose Anywhere, to search all fields including Document titles, summaries, keywords added by the database and also full-text of articles (where available). If you are finding too many irrelevant articles - it may be better to select the Anywhere except full text option.

Truncation: use * at the end of a word, e.g., comput* will find computer, computers, computing, etc.

Spelling variants: The search is automatically set up to recognise spelling variants of American and British versions of words, for example, a search for behaviour will automatically find behaviour or behavior 

Use Field searching to be precise:

e.g., type in java and select Document Title - TI from the drop-down box to find items where java appears in the title of the article;

Thesaurus Search: Because the Computer Science Collection is created from two different databases if you use the Thesaurus option to search you will exclude any records from the database that don't use that thesaurus (or that thesaurus term).  It is probably best only to use the Thesaurus option when you are searching at a more specific level on an individual database.

Narrow results by option: On each results' page there is an option to narrow your results by various filters.  However, using the filters can exclude relevant records. This is because the Computer Science Collection is created from two different each with its own set of filter options. Therefore, you will exclude records from database that doesn't use the same filter options. 

To narrow your results, it is better to create another search and combine this with your previous searches.

Combining searches: searches can be combined by selecting the Folder icon in the top right hand corner, then select the Recent searches. Then type the set numbers to combine searches, for example: 2 and 3

To narrow your search to a specific database:

• Select the All databases link from the top menu (left hand side).

• Then select the Databases link on the top menu (right hand side).

• Untick the Select all box at the top (otherwise you’ll be searching every database for all subjects).

• Scroll down to the databaseyou wish to search and tick the box next to your choice (you may need to first select the plus sign on the left of sub-collections to expand the menu of choices)

• Click the Use Selected Databases button at the foot of the page.

Click on the Find@Stir button , which provides links to the full text of the journal if available, or to the library catalogue, to check if we have the item in paper format.

Records can be downloaded into RefWorks (a software product for managing references and formatting bibliographies).