Engineers Without Borders (EWB) is an international humanitarian engineering group that serves our global neighbors in the developing world; those who need it most. We provide the basics of life such as water and shelter, using appropriate and sustainable technology. More importantly though, we help people help themselves.  Dedicated professionals and aspiring college students form the backbone of EWB, with invaluable help from corporations, Non-Government Organizations, and other supporters.  EWB at Drexel is a great way for students to hone and apply their skills to real problems, gain unique experience and become socially and globally conscious.

Here are some resources available to help you find information on projects related to Appropriate Technology.

Books

Click on the links below to see what books are available in the library in some key areas related to Manufacturing Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electronics and Nanotechnology.

• Construction Management
• Sustainable Food
• Appropriate Technology
• Sustainability
• Energy and Technology

To find additional books, search in our online catalog using Advanced Keyword Searching and using appropriate research keywords.

Books on DVD

• Appropriate Technology Library on DVD

Electronic Books

Click on the links below to access electronic books (Access only to Drexel faculty and students)

You can access full book chapters using electronic book collections such as ebrary, ENGnetBASE,  Knovel, MATERIALSnetBASE, and MECHANICALnetBASE.

• AccessScience
• Britannica Online;Encyclopaedia Britannica Online
• CivilENGINEERINGnetBASE
• ebrary
• ElectricalENGINEERINGnetBASE
• ENGnetBASE
• Knovel: Engineering and Scientific Online References
• MATERIALSnetBASE
• MechanicalENGINEERINGnetBASE

Engineering Databases

Use databases below to find scholarly journal articles on the topic of your research project.

• ASCE Civil Engineering Database
• ASCE Conference Proceedings Online
• Annual Reviews
• BuildingGreen – (BuildingGreen Suite integrates online versions of GreenSpec, Environmental Building News, and a database of more than 160 high-performance building case studies.)
• Earthquake Engineering Abstracts
• Ei Compendex and INSPEC
• Environmental Engineering Abstracts
• GeoRef
• Google Scholar
• GreenFILE
• MAD CAD – (NOTE: access to cross-referenced collections of building, electrical, mechanical, plumbing, fire, and maintenance codes from BOCA, SBCCI, ICBO, ICC, and NFPA.)
• ScienceDirect
• Transportation Research Information Services Online
  

Interdisciplinary Databases

• Database/Article Indexes for Interdisciplinary Research

News and Recent Developments

Use the following databases to find information on breaking news in about emerging technologies in magazines and newspapers

• Academic Universe(Lexis/Nexis)
• Expanded Academic
• Proquest

Web Resources

• What is Appropriate Technology?
• The National Center for Appropriate Technology: Local Solutions for a Sustainable Future
• Appropriate Technology: Journey to Forever
• The Institute for Appropriate Technology
• Appropriate Technology in Health – Video Library
• Appropriate Technology Sourcebook
  
• Appropedia

Drexel University Libraries’ Scholarly Communication Symposium:
For What It’s Worth: The Hidden Costs of Scholarly Communication

Date: April 16, 2009 8:30 am – 1:30 pm
Location: Drexel University, Bossone Lobby

Faculty, university administrators, granting institutions, publishers, governments and librarians are dealing with issues such as open access, intellectual property management, and digital content preservation. Increasing globalization, pressure for public access to federally funded research, and new measures of informative value intensify the mix of issues.

Information is more accessible than ever before. Internet search engines and protocols afford users more communication venues than anyone could have imagined just a few years ago. Open source and service-oriented architecture (SOA), wikis, blogs, and personal networks are examples of the sharing ethos of the web, and are challenging the traditional models of scholarly communication.
Information is not free. There are costs to its creation, distribution and access despite the current movements to make it “free or freely accessible”. What are these costs, hidden and otherwise? Who pays? Who benefits? What are the implications for researchers? What does this mean for publishers? Who the heck is in charge?

These are some of the questions and issues that will be explored at the annual Symposium of Scholarly Communication held at Drexel University on April 16, 2009.
See: Drexel University Libraries’ Scholarly Communication Symposium

To Register: Registration Form

The Appropriate Technology Library is 150,000 pages of full text and graphics from 1050 books covering all areas of village-level and do-it-yourself technology–all on 27 CD-ROM’s or 4 DVD’s. The AT Library gives you all the benefits of a comprehensive appropriate technology library in the space it takes to store a shoe box. The AT Library gives you the knowledge to solve real-world problems such as; harvesting clean drinking water, making tools, growing your own crops, building and maintaining an irrigation system, preserving crops, reforesting a denuded watershed, starting a small fish hatchery, building a small-scale hydropower scheme, building and maintaining pumps, treating human and animal waste, utilizing solar energy, improving rural cookstove efficiency, constructing energy efficient structures, caring for the sick, non-formal education, preparing for a natural disaster.

It is now available on DVD through Hagerty Reserve Media section at the Circulation Desk of our Library.

See:
AT library [videorecording] / Village Earth.

For more information, please refer to: The Appropriate Technology Library