WSE 470: Forest, Wood and Civilization

• This baccalaureate core class (satisfying the requirement for Global Contemporary Issues) is designed to learn about the roles of forests and wood in civilizations of the past and present, and to think about the future. I welcome junior and senior students from all majors, regardless of their background in natural resources. The course emphasizes critical thinking skills by introducing topics for which there is no correct answer. During the course students will learn about five issues:

  • Historic and current services from forests.
  • Variation in valuation of services by people in different cultures.
  • Historic and future supply and demand for wood.
  • Effects of supply and demand for wood on the 'health' of the society and its geopolitical power.
  • Potential mitigation of supply and demand problems through population control, technological advances, or forestry practices.

  Students will learn about these issues from class periods, readings, debates (each student will participate actively in one, but as an audience in the others), short commentaries they will write (2), and a term paper.  To get the most out of the class, students will need to be active learners because there is no text, and they will have to find much of the information needed for the assignments. 

The Library purchases access to "indexing" databases in order for you to identify articles on specific topics. These databases are independent of the holdings of any one library.

To locate references to articles in the scientific literature using these databases, begin at the OSU Libraries home page: http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu. Click on "Databases," and then on the first letter of the name of the database you want to use.  Because they are not all provided on the same web "platform" you cannot (with a few exceptions) search across several databases as once.

Most databases are not freely available to the public.   They are licensed to the library for OSU use.  If you are not on campus, you will encounter our "proxy server" asking you to "authenticate" yourself as a qualified OSU user by entering your name and (new) OSU ID number.  Apart from this, you should never be asked for an username and password while attempting to use a database.   If you are asked for one, this is usually an indication that the ports are busy.  Just try again later.

Experiment with the OSU Libraries Catalog; here are some hints:

• Search by keyword. Use quotation marks around phrases. Ex: "forest ecology"
• Look for the latest edition of the book titled "Balancing Act: environmental issues in forestry" by the author "Kimmins, J. P."
• You will see two copies, one is at our branch library on the Bend/Cascades campus (too far to walk) the other is in The Valley Library.
• Find its call number and use the Call Number Directory locate the floor its on (use the first letter of the call number).
• Check the "Status" to see if the book should be "available" (i.e. on the shelf) or if is it checked out (look for a "DUE" date).

• In the Summit catalog, click on the line that tells you how many libraries have the book. If OSU doesn't have it, or our copy is checked out, click on "Request this Item" and complete the information asked for.
• It will take 3 workdays for the book to arrive at the Valley Library. A notice will be sent to your ONID email when it's in and it will be held for 5 days for you to pick-up.

• To find a database that indexes journal articles covering forestry or natural resources topics begin with the link to Databases on the OSU Library Homepage.  Use the pull-down menu next to "select by subject." Choose Forest and Natural Resource Management
• Start with Academic Search Premier (via Ebsco) (left side of page).
  • Some full text, over 1800 magazines, journals, and newspapers in all subjects.
  • You can limit to academic/scholarly journals.
  • You can limit to full text and titles held by OSU.
  • If the article isn't available online but we have it at OSU, use the "Get this Item" link to make sure we have the year you want. Look for it in the OSU catalog or the E-journals list. The catalog gives you the call number for the journal or magazine.
• While you are in "Ebsco" if you need more information you can try Agricola (created by the National Agriculture Library).
• If you are particularly interested in research done by the US Forest Service, try TreeSearch with contains the full-text of many articles and reports by researchers in that agency.
• Finally, try the Forest Science database
  • Premier index of forestry journals and reports.
  • Very little available in full text online, however abstracts give a summary of the article's contents.
  • This database concentrates on peer reviewed research, so you don't need to limit to peer reviewed (academic/scholarly) journals.
  • "Subject" searches include titles, abstracts, descriptors terms. It's a good place to start but if you have a lot of irrelevant hits, find a relevant article and click on the best subject heading. Or use the "Thesaurus" to select your term.
  • If you select "View Complete Record" and look for the "WEBLH: Webbridge" link it will take you to OSU's catalog and electronic journals listing. Check to make sure we have the year you want. The catalog gives you the call number for the journal or magazine if it's not available electronically.
• If OSU doesn't have a magazine or journal you need, you can request it through Interlibrary Loan (ILL).
  • Depending on how many libraries own the journal, an ILL request may take as long as a couple of weeks, or arrive within a few days.
  • You can NOT request articles through the Summit catalog (at least not yet).
  • For most of your undergraduate work, if you find you are only getting references to journals we don't have, ask for help.