Librarian for: Chemistry, Geological Sciences, and Physics
Contact info: 346-3076, vmitch@uoregon.edu

 

Find an article here:

Other specific databases to try:
(must be on campus, or an authorized UO user if off campus, to access *starred sources)

*Web of Science

• Interdisciplinary science database, a heavily-used source for science literature. Highly recommended.

*Academic Search Premier

• Good for its mix of popular, news, and scholarly articles. You have to exercise your critical evaluation skills to help determine what's what. (Do NOT rely solely on their limit-to-peer-reviewed feature--it is not reliable.)

*ArticleFirst

• An interdisciplinary article citation database, heavy on science and technology, covering over 13,000 journals, 1990 to present. It is most useful for citation verification and making interlibrary loan requests directly from the database

ArXiv

• The physics and math e-print archive. See particularly Astrophysics, Condensed Matter, and Quantum Physics.

*GeoRef

• The most comprehensive index available for geological, geophysical, and paleontological literature, covering from 1785 to the present for North American literature, and 1933 to the present for world literature.

Google Scholar

• Google for academics. Because it can search inside pdfs, it may turn up hard-to-find information not found elsewhere.

*IEEE Xplore

• Covers IEEE (Institute of Electrical & Electronic Engineers) journals, magazines, and conference proceedings, 1988 to present. Includes full-text access to journals (but not proceedings) from 1998-present. Good for certain fields of physics and materials science: e.g., nanotechnology, optics, semiconductors, etc.

Science.gov

• Science.gov searches over 38 databases and 1,950 selected websites, offering 200 million pages of government-sponsored scientific information, including research and development results.

*SciFinder Scholar

• "The" search engine and databases for chemistry. The link above takes you to a place for downloading the special client software or registering for web access. Your temporary status probably does not authorize you for this; however, it is also loaded on computers in the Science Library (from the start menu on the PCs, go to Programs). Only 2 UO users can be searching SciFinder at the same time.

USGS Publications Warehouse

• The publications put out by the U.S. Geological Survey are very important in the geological sciences, and, happily, they are freely available to all.

Reference Sources

Print Sources

(located in the Science Library)

CRC Handbook of Chemistry & Physics. SCI REF QD65 .C4 [year] --several recent editions available in reference.

• The "bible" of basic chemical and physical property information.

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

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

Encyclopedia of Geology. SCI REF QE5 .E516 2005 (5 vols.)

• Good background articles on all aspects of geology, with references.

McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology. SCI REF Q121 .M3 2007 (20 vols.)

• What it says: covers the whole gamut. A good starting-off point.

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

• If you're working with the Deutsch or Steck labs, this may come in handy. Covers classical and quantum optics.

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 topics related to biophysics (e.g. membranes and lipids), and biochemistry (e.g. RNA-metal interactions.)

Encyclopedia of Earth

• This is free, web encyclopedia covering earth and environmental sciences and issues. However, unlike Wikipedia, articles have credentialed authors and go through an editorial review process.

*Encyclopedia of the Hydrological Sciences

• This will provide in-depth background articles, with references, to such topics as groundwater and arsenic contamination.

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 and Environmental Encyclopedia.

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: Earth Sciences

• Dictionaries and "companions" for earth and environmental sciences, geography, global change.

*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.

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)

Tutorials

How to read a scientific journal article


Evaluating Websites