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The Featured File for the Month on ProQuest Dialog™ is GeoRef, a comprehensive database in geology and geosciences covering a wide range of subjects. This overview provides details about the database, how you can use it, the advantages of doing so, how you can find a record on ProQuest Dialog and what records look like.
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The GeoRef database on ProQuest Dialog (File 89 on legacy Dialog), established by the American Geosciences Institute in 1966, provides access to the geoscience literature of the world. GeoRef contains more than 3.3 million references and is the most comprehensive bibliographic database in the geosciences. Updated weekly, it continues to grow by more than 100,000 references a year.
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A bit of history provides background on the producer of GeoRef. The American Geosciences Institute (AGI) is a nonprofit federation of 46 geoscientific and professional associations that represents more than 120,000 geologists, geophysicists, and other earth scientists. Founded in 1948, AGI provides information services to geoscientists, serves as a voice of shared interests in the profession, and strives to increase public awareness of the vital role the geosciences play in society's use of resources, resilience to natural hazards, and the health of the environment.
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The GeoRef database covers the geology of North America from 1669 to the present and the geology of the rest of the world from 1933 to the present. The database includes references to all publications of the U.S. Geological Survey and covers worldwide technical literature on geology and geophysics corresponding to the print publications: Bibliography and Index of North American Geology, Bibliography of Theses in Geology, the Geophysical Abstracts, Bibliography and Index of Geology Exclusive of North America. GeoRef organizes and indexes papers from more than 13,000 serials and other publications representative of the interests of the 46 professional geological and earth science societies that are members of the AGI. About 40% of the indexed publications originate in the United States and the remainder from outside the U.S. Publications of international organizations represent about 7% of the file.
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The database contains references to geoscience journal articles, books, maps, government documents, conference, symposia and meeting papers, reports and dissertations and theses from U.S. and Canadian universities. Major areas of coverage include mineralogy, mining and marine geology, environmental geology and more.
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Some titles will give you a flavor of the kind of scientific and technical literature contained in the database. Notice articles discuss geological topics in many different countries.
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The following example illustrates the type of information you can find in GeoRef. In this example are the results of a search on infectious diseases as they relate to Somalia. When you log on to ProQuest Dialog and select your database, you see a brief description of the database. Enter your search terms in the search box.
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Here we see a brief view of each record that includes the title and date of publication. To see a more detailed view, click the Detailed view link. You can also click the Preview link to review the entire record. Note this is a conference record. Now click the title to see the entire record.
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This record lists the title, author, conference information and publication year so you can obtain the full article. The language of the concise abstract is English and the article is from a conference paper. Subject words provide vocabulary you can use in your search. All of the indexing details appear at the bottom of each record, including title and source attribution. Notice above the list of results you can print, save, email a record or save it to My Research, your personal workspace in ProQuest Dialog.
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You can also translate the abstract of a record into other languages. In this journal article example, we want to translate the abstract into Spanish. Clink the Translate link, select the language of the abstract English from the dropdown box and the language to translate to Spanish from the dropdown box and click Translate.
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The abstract displays in Spanish. To return to English, click undo translation.
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As you can see, GeoRef provides unique, comprehensive information about geology and geosciences worldwide. To learn more about GeoRef, review the ProSheet for ProQuest Dialog or the Bluesheet when searching legacy Dialog.
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This completes our overview of GeoRef. We know you will find this comprehensive database helpful in all geosciences searches you conduct. Make it a priority to use when you need authoritative information.
Be sure to visit www.dialog.com/proquestdialog, where you will find additional training and support and valuable information on getting the most out of ProQuest Dialog.