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Help Getting Started -- Finding Conference Proceedings at UIUC

Finding conference proceedings in the online catalog can be a difficult and frustrating experience. If you cannot find the proceedings volume you are looking for, be sure to ask a reference librarian for help. S/he may be able to locate the volume for you locally, or you may request the paper through inter-library loan.

Using the following example, there are two possible routes for finding the proceedings in the online catalog: a keyword search and an author search. Author searches are useful because conference names are often cataloged as the book's author.

Conference Proceeding citation example:
  
Author

Wolk JA. Iseler G. Bryant GG. Bourret-Courchesne ED. Bliss DF.

Title

Annealing behaviour of the hydrogen-related defect in LEC indium phosphide.

Source

Conference Proceedings. 1997 International Conference on Indium Phosphide and Related Materials (Cat. No. 97CH36058). 
 IEEE. 1997, pp.408-11. New York, NY, USA

To find the Conference Proceedings of the International Conference on Indium Phosphide and Related Materials 1997 in the online catalog, you have two options. You can try a keyword search, as follows:

In this case, the search returns the desired result:

To find the call number, type the record number, in this case "1" and you will see the following screen:

A better method of locating conference proceedings at UIUC is to search by author. Library catalogers often use the conference name as an author.

Select an Keyword Author search.

You may now enter your search terms. Be sure to only search on the conference name, and not a title term such as "Proceedings" or "Transactions." In this case, the search is on "international conference indium phosphide related materials" instead of "proceedings international conference indium phosphide related materials."

You will then see a list of results as seen below. In this example, the 1997 conference was the 4th record on the 2nd screen. To page through your list of results, simply hit <CTRL> and <N> simultaneously at the end of each page.

To view the call number type 4.

Keep in mind that conference proceedings are usually extremely difficult to find, and sometimes neither title searching nor author searching will produce a call number for the item. Do not assume that UIUC does not own a copy of the volume. Many proceedings are difficult to find through the online catalog. Do not hesitate to ask a reference librarian for assistance if you have difficulty locating an item.

In addition, if you are looking for proceedings sponsored by IEEE, SPIE, MRS, or AIAA you may want to try one of the local databases created at Grainger. They provide the call numbers to proceedings that are frequently requested, but are difficult to find on the online catalog.


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