Conference proceedings can be difficult to locate, either online or in print. Often they have limited distribution, especially for smaller regional conferences. A conference sponsor (e.g., professional society, academic institution, government agency, non-profit organization) may post proceedings for varying periods of time on their own website, or even limit distribution to printed copies provided to meeting attendees.
Search Tips
Conference proceedings are also called Symposiums, Congresses, Colloquiums, Workshops, Meetings, Transactions, Papers, etc. Try using a variety of these terms in your search string. Truncate keywords using a wildcard (i.e., an asterisk) to search singular and plural forms at once (e.g., congress*).
If you know the name of a conference, use unique terms from the name as KEYWORDS when searching sources. Also try searching the conference name as an AUTHOR search. Use an acronym for the sponsoring organization in your search (e.g., ASME, SME, ASCE, IEEE, ACM).
Include the date (year) of the conference as a KEYWORD.
If necessary, try to verify citation information using Google Scholar or the WorldCat library database.