Catherine Gracey
Open Scholarship and Applied Sciences Librarian at the University of New Brunswick
Finding Computer Science Information Sources & Research
Acme Design is a full service design agency.
CS 3997, Summer 2026
Hi! My name is Cat(herine)
It's my job to help you ensure you can find relevant, reliable information to support academic assignments.
I'm available via Teams/Email and split time between Head Hall and the HIL.
Why learn search skills?
1
Help you find unbiased, reliable Information
2
Allow you to evaluate your research question
3
Are just an application of the basics of Computer Science
Because they....
- Many (most?) people use it for search and that's okay! I still think you need to understand the basics of information retrieval
- I would look out for
- Non-academic search tools - they may work as well in pulling relevant sources, but not reliable sources
- Hallucinations - if you're using a tool with RAG capabilities, it's less likely to make a source up entirely, but it may misrepresent a source
- We have tools like Consensus AI & Scopus AI through the library
A quick note on AI
Why learn search skills?
1
Help you find unbiased, reliable Information
Because they....
While GenAI tools can be very helpful, they have several limitations for research
- Their corpus is not necessarily curated, oftentimes including low-quality/predatory sources
- Recommendation algorithms, while helpful for things like Spotify/Netflix can be problematic when trying to capture unbiased research - you may just be fed results that confirm your biases/stance
- Bibliographic databases on the other hand, know nothing about you, and will provide every person who searches the same thing, the same results
Why learn search skills?
2
Allow you to evaluate your research question
Because they....
From an example with students last year:
But actually, no one had really researched exactly this topic - closest we could find was other forms of puzzles. Ended up pulling from psychology literature & CS studies with digital locks
Why learn search skills?
3
Are just an application of the basics of Computer Science
Because they....
- Bibliographic databases operate under Boolean logic - if you know the basics of coding, you can do advanced searching
Bibliographic Databases
Curated, contain peer-reviewed content
- wide breadth
- excellent for very general research questions
- not necessarily going to have all CS content
Multi-disciplinary
Discipline Specific
- curated to only contain works published by CS researchers or presented at CS conferences
- usually your go to option, ACM, IEEE
Quick Pause:
Individual research contributions
Articles
Traditionally like magazines/books, now virtual collections of articles
Journals/Conferences
Libraries or collections of journals/conference proceedings/more
Article Databases
- Search using keywords
- Results are only returned if keyword appears in text
- No 'judgement' from system on what's relevant, it shows it all
Bibliographic Databases
"artificial intelligence" AND "diagnosis"
- Literal search for only the tokens you put in
- If you search 'wife' variations like 'wives' will not be searched
- High level of specificity and control
- Harder to use
Keyword Search
Semantic Search
- Accounts for 'meaning' of terms, will search for variations
- If you search 'wife' search would include 'wives' 'spouse' 'partner'
- Less control, easy to use
- How search engines/AI tools work
Other fun syntax!
| Name | Symbol | What it does | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quotation | "" | Searches for that phrase exactly | "graph theory" |
| Truncation | * | Searches for variations on this word | educat* |
| Proximity | N/3 or Near/3 or W/3 | Searches for kw within 3 (or n) words of each other | climate NEAR/2 change |
Example 1: IEEE Demo
How can predictive models support healthcare?
Example 2: ACM Together
How does mouse sensitivity affect user experience of video games?
Example 3: Your Choice
Using ACM: Your advisor said they attended a fascinating poster session in Toronto on smart home security
Using Library Database: Tell me how many print books are available in Fredericton that have "early childhood education" in their title
Zotero Demo- the #1 tool I wish I knew about as a student
LaTeX & Zotero Resources
If we have time
Thank You!
catherine.gracey@unb.ca
CS 3997 Summer 2026
By Catherine Gracey
