Library Research

This is a list of various references available on mathematics at the Engineering & Sciences Library.

Contents:

Encyclopedias, Dictionaries, Handbooks

When beginning research on a topic, be sure to first review basic reference sources. These are titles such as subject-specific encyclopedias, subject-specific dictionaries, and a variety of handbooks that each pertain to a particular research topic.

Subject-specific encyclopedias will provide an overview of your selected topic. Many encyclopedia articles will have footnotes that will lead you to additional sources. Dictionaries are also helpful while performing research on a particular topic. Dictionaries will aid in deciphering the language of the field or providing an author with a standard definition of a term. Mathematics handbooks are also useful tools in mathematics research. Handbooks provide a way to locate formulae and data.

Below is a representative list of math specific encyclopedias, dictionaries, and handbooks that are held by the Engineering & Science Library.

Encyclopedias

Dictionaries

Handbooks

Back to top

Journal and Conference Articles

After you have some background information about your topic, use databases and indexes to identify journal or conference articles to continue your research.

Then, to obtain an article that you have found indexed:

Back to top

Databases and Indexes

There are a number of helpful databases and indexes that contain citations for math literature. Find articles related to your topic of study in mathematical journals through the use of these databases. Listed below are links to some of the more useful databases for the mathematical sciences.

Back to top

Internet and Web Resources

There may be useful contacts or information about your topic on the Web. You wil want to use a search engine such as Google or another favorite. However, judging the quality of the content that you find on the web can be very challenging. Carnegie Mellon University Libraries provides an online Tutorial for Evaluating Info on the Web. This will aid you in determining if the information you find through Internet sources is reliable.

Back to top

Books

Search Carnegie Mellon's online catalog and other library catalogs to identify useful books on your topic.

Remember that searching a library catalog is different than searching in databases that contain journal articles or conference papers. To get better results, it may be necessary to search under a broader keyword than your specific topic. When you enter a keyword in the catalog to look for books, your search is executed on basic pieces of information like the author, title, editor, publisher and subject headings. The book's title and its assigned subject headings assigned in catalog records are often much broader than your topic. Perhaps your topic is only covered in a chapter or grouping of chapters.

The Engineering & Science Library has now shifted almost entirely to the Library of Congress Classification System. We do have some materials still in the Dewey Decimal Classification system, but we hope to convert the remaining materials as soon as possible. Here are the Library of Congress classification numbers for selected mathematical topics:

QA
 Mathematics, Computer Science, and Statistics
QA9
 Logic, Symbolic and Mathematical
QA76.9.A96
 Automated Theorem Proving
QA166
 Graph Theory
QA248
 Set Theory
QA274.23
 Stochastic Differential Equations
QA315
 Calculus of Variations
QA374
 Differential Equations, Partial
QA808.2
 Continuum Mechanics

As you adjust to this new classification system, please don't forget that the librarians and their staff are here to assist you. We'll be happy to make this adjustment easier for you.

Back to top