Alumni Library Online Service – Spotlight on Forensic Resources

All Cranfield alumni are entitled to free access to the Alumni Library Online (ALO) service. This month, to tie-in with the 10^th anniversary of forensics courses at Cranfield, we are highlighting the resources ALO offers to graduates of the Forensic Programme.

Our key recommended databases in this field are:

ASTM Compass (American Society for Testing and Materials)
Full text access to material produced by the ASTM, including many thousands of active, historical and withdrawn ASTM Standards, test methods, ASTM Journals, Redlines, Special Technical Papers (STPs) plus over 1,500 books, manuals, monographs and the Data Series.  This resource is important as it gives you access to the Journal of Forensic Sciences 1972-2005.

IEEE ASPP Online – Alumni
Get full-text articles from 160 IEEE journals, transactions and magazines, from 2005 to present. Useful titles include:

• IEEE Network
• IEEE Security & Privacy
• IEEE Systems Journal
• IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing
• IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security

Sage Journals
This database provides access to the full text of articles published in over 570 Sage journals since 1999. Subjects covered include health sciences, life and biomedical sciences, materials science and engineering, social sciences and humanities. You can also set up email alerts for your favourite journals, which will let you know when future issues are published. Titles that may be of interest include:

• European Journal of Archaeology
• Homicide Studies
• International Journal of Evidence & Proof
• Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice
• Medicine, Science and the Law

Additionally, there are a range of excellent web sites offering free content to support those in these fields.  Here are some of our favourite resources:

ATF – Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
Law enforcement agency in the US Department of Justice. ATF enforces the Federal laws and regulations relating to alcohol and tobacco diversion, firearms, explosives and arson. Includes full text publications.

Bone Broke
Blog maintained by Jess Beck on archaeology, osteology and biological anthropology. Includes resources and quizzes.

Crime Scene Investigator Network
Resources for crime scene investigators. Includes information on crime scene response, evidence collection and photography.

Fire on the Web
Fire web sources from US National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Fire Research Division. Includes links to fire tests and data, software and models, full text publications and factsheets.

Forensic Focus
A digital forensics portal for digital forensics students and practitioners. It provides forums for professional discussion, latest news in the field, job vacancies and articles.

Inforce
UK NGO for recovery and identification of the victims of genocide and war crimes. Provides links to organisations working to improve human rights and forensic science, plus relevant publications.

PubMed
PubMed comprises more than 23 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books.

Reddy’s Forensic Page
Wide range of resources covering all apsects of forensics, including ballistics, CSI, DNA, toxicology, arson investigation, and forensic accounting.

Zeno’s Forensic Site
Forensic links maintained by Zeno Geradts (Forensic Scientist with the Netherlands Forensic Institute). Subjects include forensic sciences, forensic medicine and forensic psychiatry / psychology.

All the resources mentioned above (and much more) are freely available to all alumni via your alumni portal. ASTM, IEEE and Sage are in the Databases section, and the websites can be found following this path: Useful websites > Subject-specific resources > Forensics.

We hope you find them useful.

Accessing the Alumni Library Online Service

Since the redesign of the Cranfield website we have had a number of enquiries from alumni on how to access the ALO service. Here’s a quick guide:

• Go to your alumni portal – https://alumni.cranfield.ac.uk/Security/Login.aspx
• Log in with your account (see advice below if you have forgotten your login)
• Click on the down-arrow next to ‘Alumni’ – this will display the full range of alumni services
• Click on ‘Alumni Library Online’
• The homepage for ALO will then be displayed – click on a heading to access a section e.g. ‘Databases’, “Useful websites”.

Something missing?
If you know of a quality free resource that you think we should add, please let us know.

Our top tip for using ALO
Don’t be put off by the name of the database, thinking that it’s ‘only’ an engineering or a management database. Most of them have a surprisingly wide coverage so try searching for your chosen topic in all of them – you might be very pleasantly surprised by the results that you find!

Acceptable use of ALO

Please remember that all ALO resources are provided to alumni free of charge for personal development and are not to be used for commercial gain or shared with others.

 Further help

If you have any queries about the above, or would like to send us feedback about any of our resources, please contact us: libraryalumni@cranfield.ac.uk

Forgotten your password?
The ALO service is part of the alumni portal. If you having a problem with your login account please contact the Alumni Office: alumni@cranfield.ac.uk

 

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