Happy 15 year anniversary IEEE Xplore! Why you should make the most of this fantastic resource

Academic Liaison Librarian, Clare Ackerley, highlights some of IEEE's features and their benefits.

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In the 15 years since its launch, IEEE Xplore has become an essential tool for scientists - an impressive one billion documents have been downloaded by IEEE  Xplore users.

You can access IEEE Xplore's vast array of articles, conference publications, books, patents and more via the Library's E-resources guide:

• E-resources 

If you are new to IEEE Xplore or if it has been a while since you used it, why not take a quick look at their short self-paced tutorials? These 2-5 minute videos, which cover a range of topics, such as saving searches or browsing by topic, provide lots of tips and guidance to help you with your research.

• IEEE tutorials

My Projects and My Settings

You can set up your own free account in IEEE Xplore by selecting Create Account at the top right-hand corner of the homepage. You will need to do this in order to view your search history. You'll then have the option to save up to 50 searches which can be viewed under My Settings.

My Projects gives you the option to organise your searches by topic or project. You can have an unlimited number of projects and you can add notes and tags to articles as you save them to projects. My Projects is located under My Settings on the navigation bar.

Downloading citations

It is very straightforward to download citations but you will need to login to your IEEE account first. IEEE provide guidance:

• Downloading citations

New features

The eagle-eyed researcher will have noticed that the home page has recently been revised. One of the features of this is a Publication Search which allows you to search by Publication title, volume issues and start page. You can also view and copy MathML code as well as TeX commands with the MathJax plugin. Information about these features, and others too, is gathered on one page:

• New features

If you have any questions about how this resource works, let us know in the comments or get in touch with your Academic Liaison Librarian.

ScienceDirect

Academic Liaison Librarian for Chemistry, Computer Science, Electronics and Physics, Clare Ackerley, provides some tips on how to get the most out of this resource.

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ScienceDirect is a full-text database that provides access to over 2,500 journals and over 30,000 books. In addition to Physical Sciences, Life Sciences and Health Sciences, ScienceDirect has coverage of Social Sciences and Humanities, including History, Education and Linguistics and Language.

Here are some tips on using the ScienceDirect database:

1. Register online

Registering online, allows you to save your searches, set up alerts and view your search history. Simply follow the 'Sign in' option on the top right-hand side of the screen.

Tip: If you have already registered with Scopus, you can use the same login.

2. Select Advanced Search

Using the Advanced Search option will ensure you get relevant, rich results.

There are different search forms for different resources, including journals, books and images. You could use the image search form if you are specifically looking for photos, figures or tables for example.

3. Explore mobile device article

ScienceDirect recently launched their mobile device article which makes navigating and reading the full text on a small screen much easier.

The search bar is at the top of the screen while other options such as article navigation, exporting and PDF are at the bottom.

4. Manage your references

ScienceDirect is available to University of York users via the E-resources Guide, or you can explore other useful resources for your subject on your department’s Subject Guide. ScienceDirect can be used with EndNote Online to help you collect and manage your references - more information is available on our Reference Management site.

5. Ask for help if you need it!

There is a handy Quick Reference Guide to ScienceDirect and also some great online tutorials. And if all that isn’t enough, you can follow them on Twitter or keep up to date with the ScienceDirect Blog.

For more advice about using electronic resources and for general advice about Library resources for your department contact your Academic Liaison Librarian (you can find their contact details on the Subject Guide for your department).