Search

As universities enroll more Native American engineering majors and hire more Native faculty, it has become imperative to be able to find research related to Indigenous techniques and methods in engineering. Since fewer than 1% of all articles in Compendex and Inspec have the words "indigenous," "native," or "aboriginal" in the title, abstract or keyword fields, this becomes a challenge. As part of our broader research project into how to discover Native American research in science databases, this paper focuses on engineering terms, broad terms for engineering and specifically on prominently known Arizona tribes, whose various colonial and Native names also present challenges for identifying relevant research. Examining both Compendex and Inspec on the Engineering Village platform, we explore the Boolean command protocol challenges as well as the unique search options offered on the Engineering Village platform. The selected topics for this segment of the research highlights the challenges of the terms for Indigenous water use and Native farming techniques. This paper will highlight important skills and considerations for librarians who assist with research on Native American engineering topics and will also address current deficiencies in the controlled vocabularies in major engineering databases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]