CIE 498 Sustainable Engineering

Searching URSIS - Fogler's Online Catalog

URSUS is a good tool for finding books and government publications related to your project. It's best to search by subject or keyword, unless you already know the title or author of a work that you want to find. Subjects are controlled terms used within the catalog to group like items together, keywords are any words found in the record for a item, including subject terms. If you attempt a subject search, but that subject doesn't exist in the catalog, URSUS will identify possible alternate subject headings. Remember also to try alternate spellings.

Tip 1: When Searching URSUS, you can use the asterisk (*) as a wildcard symbol in your search term. The wildcard symbol can be used to search for multiple alternate endings of root words.

Tip 2: Use the URSUS Advanced search to combine search words and terms and to search in multiple fields.

Tip 3: Use Boolean operators, such as AND, OR and NOT, to combine search words and terms within the same search field.

Tip 4: Use of synonyms and alternate spellings of words will help retrieve more search results.

Tip 5: If you find a book or government publication in the search results that you like, review that item's subject headings and perform a new search in URSUS using some of those subject headings. You may find important related materials that did not appear in your first search.

Example 1: In this example we will find relevant books and government publications in the area of Sustainable Engineering that are located at Fogler Library.

1. Start at http://ursus.maine.edu/
2. Click on the ADVANCED search link.
3. Leave the first drop down menu set to Any Field and in that search box enter Sustain*
4. Leave the next drop down menu set to Any Field and in that search box enter Engineer*
5. Set the Limit to: drop down menu to University of Maine Catalog. Leave all other settings as they are. (screenshot)
6. Click the Submit button. You should get about 55 results.

Example 2: Using the search results above, we will narrow our results and identify only items related to wind (power, turbines, etc.)

1. In the current search results, find the title Wind power in view. (In my search it was result #25, on the third page of search results.)
2. Once you find this title, click on the title to open the record.
3. Review the record, particularly the subject headings.
4. At the top of the page, click the button labeled Modify Search.
5. Modify the first search field to Sustain* OR Environment*
6. In the third search field enter Wind. (screenshot)
7. Leave everything else as it is. Click the Search button. You should get about 20 results.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of what you can find using URSUS.

Remember! These examples are only a few ways to find information for your projects. Many other resources are available for students' use at the Science & Engineering Center on the 2nd floor of Fogler Library, and additional electronic journals and databases are accessible from the library's website.

If you need help finding resources, don't hesitate to contact us - that's what we're here for! There are many ways you can reach us:

Revised: 04/18/2008

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