Books and journal articles are the most common way to access scholarly research in your field, but each has advantages and disadvantages. Books take longer to research, write, and publish, so the information is not as current as in journal articles, which are shorter and slightly faster to publish. However, because they are longer and took more time to produce, books offer more thorough coverage of a topic, draw on a wider range of preexisting scholarship, and often excel in placing an argument in broader thematic and disciplinary context.
Consider a scholarly book in your own research, and look for the following:
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Helpful introduction and overview of the topic;
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Comprehensive literature review, outlining the major scholars and existing points of view on the topic;
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Detailed study of the topic, usually broken down into manageable chapters;
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Extensive bibliography to help you and other scholars find related works on the topic.
You can browse OneSearch and library stacks for titles we have in print with the following computer science call number ranges at the duPont-Ball Library, 2nd floor:
Q300-390 Cybernetics (this includes topics like machine learning and AI)
Q350-390 Information Theory
QA 75.x-76.95 Calculating machines, electronic computers, Computer Science, computer software
TK 7885-7895 Computing engineering, computing hardware
Some seminal works in the duPont-Ball Library:
