This guide provides a starting point for finding and using resources in the VU Library that will support the Bachelor of Engineering (First Year). The First Year Engineering Program at Victoria University (VU) sits within the College of Sport, Health and Engineering. It supports and guides students towards getting their architectural, civil, mechanical and electrical engineering degrees.
< Use the side menu to explore the contents of this guide.
Search engines are widely regarded as the most popular means of finding information. However, Google, Bing or Yahoo and other popular search engines should never be your only research tool.
Do you know what you are looking for?
Think about what types of information you would require in order to tackle your assignment, e.g. textbooks, handbooks or manuals, ebooks, research articles, standards, government publications? Write down any significant words (keywords) that describe your topic.
Readings
Course or unit coordinators generally provide a list of references (reading material) linked to a unit that is a good starting point for getting familiar with the topic. If the reading list is not provided, then you can start with a textbook, encyclopedia or a subject dictionary to gain a basic understanding of the topic.
Know where to look for information sources
Use the Library Search, the library’s discovery platform to find library resources. The Library Search enables you to search across the range of library’s online and print resources in one search. View the results of your search in the retrieved list of records. Each record gives brief bibliographic details of the item and either a link that provides the full access to the item, or the information about the item’s location including how many copies are available.
Library catalogue
The classic library catalogue is still available and convenient as it is the fastest tool for looking up the exact title or the author you are looking for.
For more information on using e-books, books, and journal articles view the Books & eBooks, or Databases & journals tabs.
Browse the shelves
A number of useful print material is available on the library shelves. A book is shelved according to its call number. Call numbers group similar subjects together on the library shelves. View the subject areas and call number ranges that are typically relevant to Building Design.
Let's take a moment to think about your morning. The alarm on your phone goes off at 7:03. You drag yourself to the shower and blast yourself with perfectly warm water in an attempt to wake up. You smear your toothbrush with too much toothpaste and scrub yourself into a foamy mess of minty freshness. You're running late, so you skate downtown weaving through the commuters, dart across the road barely making the lights and jump on the train just before the doors beep shut. There's a couple of stops to go so you pull out your phone and play a few games of Angry Birds. Alarms, trains, traffic lights, video games, toothpaste.
All these things were made possible by engineers. But what prompts an engineer to improve our world? Well, they solve problems. Problems are an engineer's inspiration and maths and science are the creative tools they use to solve them. Problems like making your alarm go off at the right time, or making sure your toothpaste is just the right balance of chemicals to give you that perfect smile. Or even making a game so addictive it's almost impossible to put down if that really is a problem. Now let's head over to the airport and jump on an aeroplane. Ahh aeroplanes, they're so easy to take for granted. But don't forget, you can fly! Before aeroplanes, flying was quite a bit more challenging. Every bit of your plane has been touched by engineers. A mechanical engineer designed the engine, a mechatronics engineer devised the controls, the fuel? Extracted by mining engineers and refined by chemical engineers. The navigation systems? Electrical and software engineers created those. Now we've landed in Dubai, home of the Burj Khalifa. It's the world's tallest building at 829.8 meters high. It's also in one of the world's hottest environments, reaching up to 50 degrees in summer.
One of the difficulties of building the Burj was trying to figure out how to set forty-five thousand cubic meters of reinforced concrete in such extreme weather. The solution? A clever method of pumping iced liquid concrete into the 55,000 tonnes steel frame during the night. The result? A building that's vertically over 800 meters high, rather than horizontally all over the ground. Now let's jump into our time machine and go back to Saturday, Saturday, March 1932. The Sydney Harbour Bridge is about to open. The bridge is a marvel of civil engineering and a pretty cool place to set off some fireworks. Since 1815 people had been talking about building a bridge to connect the two sides of the Harbour. The problem was that the harbour was so incredibly wide, how could a bridge span such width and support its own weight? The solution? The Romans! Well, actually it was an idea they came up with. The arched bridge works by transferring the weight into horizontal forces and bracing them at the ends of the arch.
But what about the future? What problems will engineers solve next? Will we finally have affordable solar power? Or robots that can perform life-saving surgery, or a building that's so tall your view is of outer space. Or how about finally engineering a working hoverboard? Seriously, we've waited long enough.
So what is engineering? It's solving problems. It's taking crazy, out-there ideas and seeing if they're actually possible.
And when they are, the idea is shared with the world to make all our lives better. So, what problems do you want to solve?
Refer to the Academic integrity & preventing plagiarism page to read about acknowledging the sources of the ideas you use in your writing.
|
|
|
We acknowledge the Ancestors, Elders and families of the Kulin Nation (Melbourne campuses), the Eora Nation (Sydney campus) and the Yulara/Yugarapul and Turrbal Nation (Brisbane campus) who are the traditional owners of University land. As we share our own knowledge practices within the University, may we pay respect to the deep knowledge embedded within the Aboriginal community and recognise their ownership of Country. |
This content is licensed to Victoria University under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
