REU - Research Experience for Undergraduates

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Selected Library Resources for Materials Science

This page should help you with any library research you need to do this summer. Feel free to contact me with questions. You may also want to try the UO Libraries LibX Toolbar for your browser!

Other pages you might want to bookmark: Library Research Guides to Chemistry and Physics.

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Reference Sources

Print Sources

(located in the Science Library)

Encyclopedia of Applied Physics. SCI REF QC5 .E543 2004 (12 vols.)

• A good source of background information on everything from protein dynamics to electronics to quantum optics, and much more.

Encyclopedia of Polymer Science and Technology, 3rd ed. (8 vols.) SCI REF TP1110 .E53 2003

Optics Encyclopedia: Basic Foundations and Applications. SCI REF QC351.2 .O62 2004

• Want an explanation of, say, interferometry and all the different types of interferometers? This is the place.

Physical Properties of Polymers Handbook, 2nd ed. SCI REF TA455 .P58 P475 2007

Springer Handbook of Condensed Matter and Materials Data. SCI REF QC173.454 .S67 2005

• Properties and other information on many classes of materials.

Online Sources

(must be on campus, or an authorized UO user if off campus, to access starred *sources)

*Encyclopedia of Biological Chemistry

• In-depth articles with good background information on proteins, protein dynamics.

Fundamental Physical Constants

• CODATA Internationally recommended values of the Fundamental Physical Constants

*Gale Virtual Reference Library

• You can search the whole collection, or see particularly Chemistry: Foundations & Applications.

Index to Physical, Chemical and Other Property Data

• From Arizona State-some of the online resources are for ASU only, but many of the books can also be found in the UO Science Library.

Materials Properties Locator Database from SUNY Buffalo.

• Helps to locate reference books containing property data. Searchable by property and type of material. The UO Science Library will have some, but not all, of these books.

NIST Chemistry WebBook

• National Institute of Standards and Technology thermochemical, thermophysical and spectral data for thousands of compounds and reactions.

NMRShiftDB

• An open access NMR database for compound identification and support for computer-assisted structure elucidation. Contains about 10,000 structures and assigned spectra, with new datasets constantly added.

*Oxford Reference Online: Physical Sciences

• Dictionaries of chemistry, physics, etc.

Compare the above reference sources with:

Wikipedia

• Do the articles have identified authors? Are the authors' credentials and affiliations available? Do the articles have references or bibliographies? If so, are there differences in the kinds of references given?
• Wikipedia is a very handy, free Internet source, but it is not necessarily reliable. For a humorous demonstration of this phenomenon, watch this excerpt of the Colbert Report on Comedy Central. (Some improvements have been made to Wikipedia since this segment aired.)

Deep (or Invisible) Web Sources

CompletePlanet "The Deep Web Directory"

• Claims to index "over 70,000+ searchable databases and specialty search engines."

InfoMine

• A searchable index of scholarly internet resource collections. Includes useful search limiters, such as type of resource, and whether resource if free or fee-based.

WolframAlpha "Computational Knowledge Engine"

• From the creator of Mathematica, a brand new kind of web engine that purports to be "the first step in an ambitious, long-term project to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone." It is very intriguing, but be careful to note the source of the data WolframAlpha is using in its computations.

Citing Sources

General Help

See Citing Sources in Research Papers

• A general guide from the library that includes help for citing electronic sources.

Style Guides

• The ACS Style Guide: A manual for authors and editors, 3rd ed. [SCI REF QD8.5 .A25 2006]
• A Quick Guide to Citing Using the ACS Style Guide, 3rd Ed. (pdf) Courtesy of Nan Butkovich, Physical Sciences Librarian at Penn State.
• ACS Style Guidelines from Emily Wixson, U Wisconsin-Madison Chemistry Library. This guide is very helpful, but for complete information, see the book above.
• AIP Style Manual, 4th ed. This manual from American Institute of Physics is out of print (and there's nothing later available), and available free in pdf form on their web site.

Evaluating Sources

This web page contains a wealth of information on evaluating information sources both in print and on the Web: Critical Evaluation of Information Sources

To determine whether a particular periodical (magazine, journal) is scholarly (peer-reviewed, refereed) or popular, see these pages:

• Scholarly or Popular?
• Types of Periodicals (pdf)

What is "peer-review"?

Here are a couple of pdfs that provide good explanations of what it is (and is not), and why it's particularly important in the sciences:

• Peer Review in a Nutshell
• Sense About Science Short Peer Review Guide

(NB: both of the above are produced in the UK, so there are a few Britishisms that may not make sense)