Library Resource Spotlight: Natural Science Collection
To celebrate World Environment Day (WED), let’s introduce one of our resources – Natural Science Collection!
World Environment Day, celebrated annually on the 5th of June, is the United Nations primary outreach day supporting the environment and encourages awareness and action for the protection of the environment on topics, such as marine pollution, global warming, wildlife crime, and sustainable development. WED was first established in 1972 by the United Nations at the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, which resulted from discussion on the integration of human interactions and the environment, with the first WED celebrations being held a year later in Switzerland.
The theme for this year’s WED is ‘Ending Plastic Pollution’ and is focusing on how plastic pollution permeates every corner of our planet. The campaign, which is drawing inspiration from nature and showcasing real-world solutions (#BeatPlasticPollution), comes exactly two months before countries meet again to continue negotiating a global treaty to end plastic pollution.
The Natural Science Collection is a full-text database covering comprehensive scholarly output from around the world, such as scholarly journals, trade and industry journals, conference proceedings, governmental publications and more. The collection, encompassing a range of subjects including water resources, sustainability, conservation and environmental studies, comprises of three databases - the Agricultural & Environmental Science database, the Earth, Atmospheric & Aquatic Science database, and the Biological Science database.
The collection has both a basic and advanced search functionality as well as the option to search by publication. There’s also the ability to browse by popular sources, such as frequently used magazines, news and other sources, and by high impact scholarly journals, such as influential journals from multiple scientific and technical disciplines. Other publication types can also be browsed, such as trade journals, conference papers, and preprints, plus there’s also featured videos too.
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) can also be explored in-depth, with topic pages offering explanations of each goal’s sub-targets and curated recommendations for scholarly journals, top publications, news, books, case studies and more. Goal 12, which is responsible consumption and production, looks to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns for current and future generations and is highly topical given the theme of this year’s WED.
The Natural Science Collection is also available on the Library’s A-Z of online resources, and for access, please login with your Keele username and password. There’s also a handy help page too.
So, check out the Natural Science Collection and join the #BeatPlasticPollution movement because together we can create a healthier future!
