Searchguide – BTH English

Here is a short introduction on how to build search strings and do advanced searches in ACM.

A database is a collection of data systematically stored so that they are easy to retrieve.

One example of a database is the Library catalogue, which contains information about the library’s books and makes it possible to find a particular book quickly.

There are different kinds of databases for different purposes, and in this chapter you can read about how they work and in what contexts they are useful. The structure of a database, and the search facilities offered, differ greatly depending on what type of material the database covers.

Searching for information in databases is different from using Internet search engines. In the Search guide section there are many great tips on how you can make better and more effective database searches, see for example the texts about search terms and search technique.

Many databases are freely available on the Internet like the Library catalogue, but some are commercial and subject to a charge. Students and staff at Blekinge Institute of Technology have access to a number of databases which the Library subscribes to. When you use a computer on campus you automatically have access to all information resources. In the text Searching from home in the Search guide section you can read more about how to access the Library’s information resources from home.

Jenny Löfkvist
2005-06-28

An archive is a collection of documents. The term is also used for the place where the documents are stored and for the institution which stores and preserves them.

Informal sources which were not published by commercial publishers are often called “grey literature”.

Archives

Documents collected in archives can for example be protocols, letters or account books. The documents are stored in different media, e.g. paper, microfilm or magnetic tape. Archives can be available in part or in whole on the Internet.

Den Nationella Arkivdatabasen (NAD)
The national archives database contains information on archival records in Swedish archives, libraries and museums. It exists on CD-ROM and is being transferred to the Internet.

The national archives have the supervision of all public records of the agencies of the central government.

The research center SVAR (Swedish archival information) is a unit within the national archives. Among other things, its task is to make archival material accessible for research and education.

Follow the link below to read more about archives. There you will find, among other things, a guide for the Swedish archival organization and links and addresses for archives.

Grey literature

They can for example be conference papers, preprints, working papers, market surveys, leaflets, investigations etc. The publisher can be e.g. universities, authorities, organizations or companies. Publishing is not their primary activity. Grey literature can be printed or electronic.

Grey literature may not sound very exiting, but it can contain a lot of interesting and valuable information which is not published elsewhere. A small part of the grey literature is published in regular publishing after some time, but then it has often been edited, and important details about research methods and experiments might have been excluded. Then the grey literature is the only information source.

Jenny Löfkvist
2005-06-28

In many countries there are special institutions where an inventor can apply for patent for his product, and thereby protect it from competitors.

Swedish patent and registration office

The authority which grants patents in Sweden is the Swedish patent and registration office, PRV. In order for an invention to be patentable, it has to be new, be used industrially, and also show novelty and inventiveness. The purpose of patents is to protect the inventor’s right against competitors. Without patents, the latter could start production and sales for an invention they did not have any research and development costs for. The sole right for an invention is limited for a maximum of 20 years.

Violation of protection by a patent

A person who violates protection by a patent is guilty of patent infringement, and can be brought to court and sued. To guard an invention against patent infringement can be a problem for the individual inventor who does not have a financially strong corporation to back him up. In general you also need resources to prosecute patent infringement. To bring the matter to court can also be very costly.

The reach of protection by a patent

One further complication is that patents granted in Sweden are only valid here. If you want to exploit the product also abroad, it has to be patented in the country/-ies concerned. More and more countries are joining international patent organizations, where Sweden is also a member, and for this reason patents granted in Sweden will also be valid in the international organizations.

International agreements

In 1978 two international conventions came into force: The Patent Cooperation Treaty, PCT and the European Patent Convention, EPC. Sweden has joined both these conventions. There are no world patents, but through PCT applications are concentrated to a limited number of agencies, e.g. PRV. The applicant therefore only needs to submit one application A PCT application can be followed up by an application at EPO, European Patent Office, which grants patents according to EPC. This gives a special advantage because there are about 20 European countries which have joined this convention.

Databases

There is the possibility to search both national and international databases for patented products and PRV has a good link collection for this purpose, e.g. for Espacenet which offers the possibility to search among 30 million national and international patents. There is also a link to USPTO with American patents since 1790.

Kent Pettersson
2005-06-22

Expressed popularly, standardization means “to once and for all solve recurring problems”. We have probably all become irritated about how the plugs for electrical devices do not fit the sockets in other countries, this despite the fact that there is a long history of standardization. But, it is really not until the 20th century that standardizations have developed in an organized manner.

SIS – standardization in Sweden

For this purpose there are a large number of organizations that work with standardization. The work is done either by official organs for standardization or by others, as for example trade and interest organizations. SIS, Standardization in Sweden is one example of the first mentioned.

CEN and ISO

Sweden is a member of CEN, Comité Européen den Normalisation, which produces European standards. The membership in CEN means that Sweden has undertaken the implementation of the standards taken by the organization. Through this membership Sweden also implements international standards taken in the organization ISO, International Organization for Standardization, since they are included in CEN.

SS

The common designation for SIS standards is SS or for example SS-EN-ISO, which means it is an international standard which has been taken at European level and then finally implemented in Swedish standardization.

Trade organizations

Alongside the official organs there are other institutions which represent e.g. trade organizations that work with, and form standards. They complement the official standards and they occur to a different extent in all countries. In the United States it is highly common for different trades to form standards, which results in a large number of documents.

IEEE standards

One example of an organization with an extensive publication is IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. IEEE is a membership organization which offers the industry a big package of standard programs. For computer science, signal processing, telecommunication etc. their standardization work is of great importance. At BTH we have access to all IEEE standards. At the Library you will also find some standards in print, e.g. SIS Katalog över svensk standard.

Finding other standards

If you can not find the standard you need you can contact the librarian who will procure the standard.

Kent Pettersson
2005-06-22

Here you can learn about how to seek information about people in encyclopedias, web sites and search engines.

A biography is a description of a person’s life, written by somebody else. If the person in question writes about his own life it is called an autobiography. In general dictionaries and encyclopedias such as Nationalencyclopedin and Encyclopedia Britannica, you can find biographies of varying length.

Subject specific dictionaries can also be useful. If you are searching for an author’s biography you can use literature dictionaries such as The Oxford companion to American literature. The encyclopedia Access Science (McGraw-Hill) is a very good source for biographies in science and technology. The Library has both printed and electronic dictionaries and encyclopedias.

Projekt Runeberg contains several older dictionaries and encyclopedias, e.g. ’Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon’ published in 1906 as well as both the first and second edition of the encyclopedia ‘Nordisk familjebok’.

In scientists homepages you can often find interesting material, e.g. descriptions of research projects, lists of publications and conference papers. Sometimes the whole text is published, and other times just the references. There is also often contact information if you want to send an e-mail or make a phone call to ask questions.

In the search engine Scirus’ advanced search form you can choose to search only among scientists home pages. You can also try searching for the scientist’s name or university in the search engine Google.

Jenny Löfkvist
2005-06-22

It is getting easier to find high quality maps on the Internet. Especially city maps are often free of charge. Most maps are sold commercially however, and give a better quality regarding print and format.

Lantmäteriet

Has the main responsibility for geographical information in Sweden. Their work is financed in part by the state and in part through the sales proceeds of maps. Thus the maps are not freely available on the Internet for downloading. But most of it can be ordered for money. Through an agreement with Lantmäteriet, BTH has access to the database Digitala kartbiblioteket (Digital library of maps).

Digitala kartbiblioteket

With this service Lantmäteriet offers access for maps for students and staff at Swedish universities and colleges. They can also download maps to their computers. This service only works on computers connected to the university network on campus, and therefore not from home. Before you start using this service you must receive an account from Lantmäteriet. You register on the Digitala kartbiblioteket web site and receive your account by e-mail. There is a manual where the terms of use are described as well as how to use the service. Digitala kartbiblioteket works best with the browser Internet Explorer.

Screen- and vector format

Maps are either in screen- or vector format. The screen format can be said to be a digital image of the real analog map. The vector format is a digital translation of the analog map. Lines and curves are defined by mathematical objects, so called vectors and the advantage is that the image can be enlarged without losing the quality of the image. When a screen map is enlarged the pixels that constitute the digital image will show.

Types of maps in the Digitala kartbiblioteket

Sverigekartan in scale 1:1 000 000
Is a complete map of Sweden.

Översiktskartan in scale 1:250 000
Overview map formerly known as the Red map. It covers the whole country. In print there is one map for each Swedish province. It shows places, roads, borders, hydrography etc.

Vägkartan in scale 1:100 000
The Road map was formerly known as the Blue map. It covers the whole country with detailed information about bigger and smaller roads. Excellent for bicycle outings and mountain hiking.

Terrängkartan in scale 1:50 000
The Terrain map was formerly known as the Green map, and before that it was called the Topographical map. It covers all of Sweden except the greater part of the mountain world, and the inner parts of Västerbotten and Lappland. Like the Road map it is well-suited for outdoor life since it indicates larger paths. It is not as detailed as orienteering maps though.

Topografiska kartan in scale 1:10 000
Corresponds to the real estate map, but without property borders and property information. It comprises all of Sweden except the mountain world. The map is based on orthographic photographs in the same scale.

Stadskartan in scale 1:10 000
The city map comprises about 300 urban areas in Sweden. It is based on SCB:s definition of an urban area. Public buildings are marked in red on the map.

Ortofoto in scale 1:10 000
Black and white air photographs of Sweden. The orthographic photographs are used as basic data for the production of ordinary maps, but the photographs give a more detailed picture of the landscape. At the Lantmäteriet web site there is also the possibility of viewing a number of high resolution colour air photographs of Swedish cities free of charge.

Downloading and printing
The manual describes quite clearly how to log in and order maps. After a while the map you ordered is delivered to the e-mail address you stated. In this letter you are requested to save the file. The most appropriate thing to do next is to open the file in a (simple) image processing program since some adjustments need to be made if you want the map format to be to scale. In a free program like Adobe Photoshop Elements you do the following to get the correct scale:

Choose Image – Resize – Image size. Under Resolution you change the number of pixels to 254. Here you can also see how big the printed document will be, which gives you the opportunity to adjust the paper size.

Orienteering maps
Certain types of maps can be difficult to find because they are published by other organizations than Lantmäteriet. How do you for example find information about orienteering maps? Over which areas are such maps made? Who produced them and who do I contact if I want to buy a map? In the Libris database you can often find the answers to these questions. In the extended search form and the search field media type you can choose maps, and then make a search for e.g. Ronneby. A similar service can be found on The Swedish Orienteering Federation web site.

Freely accessed maps of Sweden

Stadskartan
Here you can find maps of Swedish cities. You can search for streets and street numbers. This service works poorly in Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer is recommended.

Länskartor
Brief information and maps of the Swedish provinces.

Nationalencyklopedin
In the encyclopedia Nationalencyklopedin there is extensive map material. On the first page of NE under the headline Atlas there are links to maps of Sweden, the countries of the world and star charts. Connected to the maps are articles and pictures of a great number of places treated in the encyclopedia.

Nordic countries

Statens kartverk in Norway
Norweigan ’Statens kartverk’ has a service on the Internet which is similar to Digitala kartbiblioteket. It differs in that it is open for everyone and it is not of as high quality as Digitala kartbiblioteket, but despite this it is useful in many situations.

Denmark
’Kort-och matrikelstyrelsen’ (The National Survey and Cadastre) has a service called ”Kort på nettet” (Find a place). Here are city maps, road maps, terrain maps etc. Older historical maps are also available.

The company Krak offers various free map services. For example there is a search tool where you can state the name of a street and get the relevant map and city. Apart from maps you can also get a recommendation for the best route between two places, plus address and phone number for companies and private persons.

Landmaelingar on Iceland
Under Map window ’Landmaelingar’ offers digital maps in different scales. There are for example outstanding maps in 1:100 000 of the whole island. Click the map on the main page and then the button at the bottom of the page with the text Kort – Maps. The sizes 1:100 000 and 1:750 000 are screen maps and therefore display ’real’ map information.

Finland
In the service ”Surf Finland” there are links to Finnish cities and municipalities, and their web sites. The information is often translated to Swedish or English. In case there is no translation, map is called ‘kartta’ in Finnish. Places can be searched in a map index or via a clickable map.

The world

Multimap
Offers maps on street level in Europe and the United States, plus road maps from around the world. Multimap also offers air photographs of places in England which can be viewed on screen and ordered.

Geoforum
Link collection for national and international map collections.

Historical maps
Link collection for historical maps from around the world.

Kent Pettersson
2005-06-22

According to the Swedish constitution the Swedish Riksdag is sovereign legislator and therefore decides what laws will be in force in Sweden. The government, state and local authorities do not have the corresponding right, but they can issue rules and regulations that citizens must follow. However, these do not have the dignity of laws.

Swedish laws are published by the government in the series The Swedish Code of Statutes (Svensk författningssamling, SFS). They are published continuously as the Riksdag makes decisions about new laws. SFS is published in booklets and in bound volumes by the end of the year. The digital form of SFS can be found in the databases of the Riksdag, Rixlex.

Body of laws

The body of laws the Statute Book of Sweden is published once a year and thus does not contain the most recent laws. It is a compilation of the most important laws and it is divided in an act system which has its origin in the 1734 year law. Since a couple of years back, the body of laws Sveriges Lagar is also issued. It is divided into 29 different subject fields in chronological order. In total more than 1100 statutes and some EU acts are included. The selection of statutes is about the same as in the commented body of laws Karnov. In Karnov law texts are commented and there are also references for relevant cases. You can find all this material at the University college library.

EU-legislation

Through our membership in the EU we have undertaken to implement directives and regulations in Swedish legislation. Many of the laws that are passed by the Riksdag today are thus based on regulations from the EU. You can find these in EUR-Lex. To search for a specific law in EUR-Lex can be difficult. The database offers a free text search function, but finding adequate search terms can be a problem. It is considerably easier if you have access to the so called Seelig number, which all legal documents are supplied with. In Rixlex register of Swedish statutes, the Seelig number is now included.

Courts

In certain situations it can be interesting to read about how laws are applied in our courts. At Domstolsväsendets rättsinformation you can find reports from different types of courts with precedent function.

Kent Pettersson
2005-06-22

Finding statistical information is often tricky, especially if you want information from other countries than Sweden. In Sweden, statistical information has been collected since the 1686 law on parish registration, and in 1858 Statistics Sweden (Statistiska centralbyrån, SCB) was formed. In the whole world, only Sweden and Finland have such a long continuity of centrally collected statistics.

Sweden’s Official Statistics

In print SCB publishes the series Sweden’s Official Statistics (SOS). In 1994 parts of SCB’s responsibility for collecting statistical information were transferred to a number of state authorities, who are now responsible for the publishing of their respective statistics. You can find an overview of the responsible authorities on the Swedish Statistics Net. In digital form you will find the statistics (SOS) on the SCB website in the statistical database. Here you can select statistics for a certain subject. Making large selections from the statistical database is difficult for capacity reasons. A special table management program called PC-AXIS has been developed to facilitate the managing of large amounts of data. Using this program you can process already existing statistical files.

Statistical yearbook of Sweden

SCB also publishes the Statistical yearbook of Sweden, with general contents, and in addition to that a number of specialized yearbooks in different fields such as agriculture, industry, education etc. You can download this book from the Internet or read it at tha Library.

Foreign countries

International statistics and statistics from other countries are most easily found in SCB´s collection of links for other statistical resources. There are for example links to international organizations such as UN, OECD, EU etc. There is also an alphabetical list of countries and links to their authoroties for statistics. You will also find some links for statistics in the Library web page.

The Library

At the library you can find Swedish statistics in print, e.g. statistics on education, population, agriculture etc. Most of the material can be found by searching the Library catalogue. See this example, agriculture statistics, and try this yourself.

Kent Pettersson
2005-06-22

Tutorials and help pages for databases, search engines and Internet directories work as support and guidance for new and inexperienced users. These help functions are built-in the systems.

Tutorials

An introductory tutorial is useful when you want to start searching a new database. Tutorials are used for new users who are learning a system and they often give step-by-step instructions. Online tutorials are sessions for practice which are constructed especially for new users of a database so that they will get an idea of how it works.

At your own pace you can go through prepared exercises and examples in a test environment. You can go back and repeat if you did not understand the instructions the first time. You can follow how a search is built, how to use the thesaurus, how different operators such as And, OR and NOT are used, plus get many good tips on what to keep in mind when searching that specific database.

Help pages

Most search tools have help pages. A good advice for when you are searching the web is to always read the help pages of search engines and subject catalogues where you can get advice on how to limit your search among other things. In the help pages you can also get tips on how operators such as AND, OR and NOT are used, plus many other useful tips on what to consider when searching that specific database. The functions of the operators can vary between different databases and search engines.

If you want to get better and more manageable search results you should learn a little more about the search tool you are using. If you spend a couple of minutes reading them it will be easier for you to find good and useful information. The help pages available from the various search engines and catalogues are often very valuable to study when you are searching for information. They help you save time and get more precise search results.

You will find a good example of a help page at the search engine Google.

Anne-Marie Pettersson
2010-02-06