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Information Systems and Technology

Finding Books Journals, Proceedings & Dissertations
Finding Articles Encyclopedias & Reference Works
IT Industry Advisor Reports

Finding Books

Searching the catalog for books on information systems and technology:
Try a keyword search: information systems AND java
Try a subject search: Information Science — Moral And Ethical Aspects
OR search Safari Tech Books collection full-text: Safari Tech Books
Special Tip: Search just examples of code using the “advanced search” feature in Safari Tech Books - it covers OReiley books among others.

Finding Articles

best resource ACM Digital Library & Guide to Computing Literature — ELECTRONIC
Two separate products from the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery). The Digital Library includes abstracts, reviews, and the full-text of articles published in ACM periodicals and proceedings since 1985. The Guide to Computing Literature has abstracts-only of non-ACM computing literature and (through SFX) often links to full-text. Covers many computing-oriented information science topics.
Ei Compendex– ELECTRONIC
Comprehensive interdisciplinary engineering database with excellent coverage of software engineering, and computer engineering. Has over eight million summaries of journal articles, technical reports, and conference papers and proceedings. Use SFX for full-text links.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science — ELECTRONIC
Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) publishes hundreds of conference proceedings every year with new developments in computer science and information technology research. Includes the series in Artificial Intelligence (LNAI) and Bioinformatics (LNBI). If a proceeding is not in ACM, then it’s here in LNCS. Content goes back to 1973.
best resource Proquest — ELECTRONIC
This multidisciplinary source often covers business aspects of technical issues. Easy to navigate and broad scope.
ScienceDirect – ELECTRONIC
A deep and diverse collection of journals from publishing giant Elsevier, includes many computing titles.
Web of Science –ELECTRONIC
This abstract-only source covers high impact library and information science journals as well as most other academic topics. Through its citation tracking, ranking and sorting features you can quickly identify seminal papers of interest and, through SFX links, find full-text.  Try the various “analyze” features.

IT Industry Advisor Reports

Burton Group IT Research - MEDIATED RETRIEVAL - (select reports from links below & email siftar at drexel dot edu )
Tactically focused to keep IT managers ahead of the curve on new developments, ranging between 25-50 pages with loads of deep, practical advice. They offer in-depth reports on both products and technology areas, using what they call a “Reference Architecture”—or a decision-making framework. They also offer Methodologies and Best Practices documents. What I especially like are the templates for positioning your organization vis-a-vis new IT solutions and powerpoints for communicating with upper management. These are not to be missed for anyone doing software selections or facing a buy VS. build decision. Techie-approved! (Drexel’s own IRT uses these.)

Our license currently includes access to three of the six content areas offered by Burton Group:

Content and Collaboration Strategies (CCS) (overview) (full list of reports)
Data Center Strategies (DCS) (overview) (full list of reports)
Identity and Privacy Strategies (IdPS) (overview) (full list of reports)

How to use Burtons: First - scan the overviews to understand their nomenclature. Then review the full list of reports. Email the titles of the reports you want to siftar at drexel dot edu. You will receive them within one business day.

Faulkners Advisory for IT Studies –ELECTRONIC
Short, basic overviews covering fundamental aspects of information technologies, the companies behind them and current topics in the industry. Offers nine report types such as “standards” and “selection guide” to support applied IT research and decision-making. Best basic definitions for technical level work.
Faulkners Security Management Practices — ELECTRONIC
The special release from Faulkners includes both the IT and business practice aspects of security in a comprehensive, yet accessible collection of reports, articles, book chapters and other content. Best holistic approach to security.
best resource Gartner Intraweb Research –ELECTRONIC
Gartner offers comparisons among current IT products and services that capture the current state of the marketplace. The catchy format of their “magic quadrant” report shares a summary of options that sums up all the nuts-and-bolts detail. Browse this service by content type or industry, or keyword search. The current year is full-text, some of the older reports are abastract-only. Best strategic, high-level offering we have.
Coming soon! Gartner Group Portal - the direct access will require a one-time personal registration process.

BACKGROUND: What are IT Advisory Firms? Why is their research so great?
Independent IT advisory firms are comprised of analysts and consultants tracking IT product areas, technology frontiers and industry verticals. Most firms do custom research and consulting for clients as well as make specialists available for phone interviews to subscribers. While interview services are not available for Drexel students, the analyst research reports offer a wealth of insights from seasoned industry leaders.

NOTE: Our subscriptions do not include all reports available from these firms, and excludes many backfile reports older than one year. However many of the authors publish regularly on the same topics. In the event that you want an article that falls outside of our subscription, you may have success searching for other articles by the same analyst or looking for more recent reports.

TRIVIA: Other IT advisory and market research firms that Drexel DOES NOT SUBSCRIBE TO often have some free reports available. Try them out: ComputerEconomics, EMarketer, Forrester Research, IDC, Jupiter Research, Yankee Group (telco), and selected investment banking firms.


Journals, Proceedings & Dissertations

best resource Journals
Search the titles of Drexel’s journals for the keywords:
information science
information technology
Then browse the holdings of those individual journals, or search again within each journal for your topic.
Proceedings
Research presented at conferences is often more cutting edge than what gets published in journals. Find information science conference proceedings in LNCS, ACM Digital Library, ERIC and also in the multidisciplinary Papers First - a world-wide index to papers of conferences and meetings received at the British Library. Other finding aides include an index to the full meetings themselves Proceedings First or the global library catalog WorldCat that can help verify details before ordering hard-to-find items through Drexel’s Document Delivery.
Digital Dissertations
The most comprehensive source for student theses. Dissertations from 1980 forward have 350-word abstracts. Citations for master’s theses from 1988 forward include 150-word abstracts. All titles published since 1997 are available in in PDF format and have 24 page previews available. Drexel dissertations are available in full text from 1997. Other dissertations and theses are available for online purchase.

Encyclopedias and Reference Works

Annual Review of Information Science and Technology — PRINT & ELECTRONIC (partial)
Hagerty REF Z699.A1 A65
ARIST has 10-20 page scholarly reviews of recent trends and developments in information science and technology, with many references to the published literature. The aim is to furnish the reader with a complete picture of the state-of-the-art for each area.  Topics vary from year to year. An online index to all 41 volumes can be searched online here or the volumes from 2002-2006 are available at the link above.  
best resource Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology — ELECTRONIC & PRINT
REF Z1006 .E566 2005
Includes over 550 articles covering concepts, issues & emerging technologies in five volumes.
Special Topic Encyclopedias
Encyclopedia of Data Warehousing and Mining — ELECTRONIC
Encyclopedia of Human Computer Interaction — ELECTRONIC
Encyclopedia of Distance Learning –ELECTRONIC & PRINT   REF LC5211 .E516 2005

iSchoolResearch

“Books 24×7″ - New Info Tech Ebooks
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GoodwinResearch

“Ecoffee Table” - EZ access to popular magazines
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