13 November 2001. Revised 10 February 2006. Document delivery service, Infotrieve, offers a database of bibliographic citations and article abstracts. It includes information from more than 54,000 journals and covers disciplines, such as science, technology, medicine and law. Query the database for free. Purchase full-text copies of articles directly from the site. Coverage extends back to 1966. 31 May 2001. Esteemed abstracting and indexing service Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA) offers its database of bibliographic citations of scientific literature as well as several reports on various "hot topics." CSA's hot topics series covers several issues relating to biomedical, environmental, life, and materials sciences. Each report offers information about current issues as well as key abstracted citations and Web sites. This portion of the service appears to be free.
Access to CAS's Internet Database Service requires a subscription. CAS, however, makes an older portion of the database available for searching free of charge. This requires registration.
The fee-based service includes access to databases like AGRICOLA (agricultural sciences), Conference Papers Index, Environmental Sciences & Pollution Management, GeoRef (geological sciences), International Pharmaceutical Sciences, NTIS (technical reports), PsycINFO, WasteInfo (waste management), and more. It also provides access to electronic journals published by CAS.
Searchers may query more than one database simultaneously, deliver search results electronically, set up email alerts for ongoing research, and request full-text articles via interlibrary loan. The later may require membership with participating libraries.
31 July 2002. The Copper Development Association provides access to its Copper Data Center database. The database contains bibliographic information about literature covering copper, related technologies, and the role of copper in the environment. Use the helpful thesaurus to launch your keyword query. Some full-text documents may be ordered via a "locate document" link. 31 October 2002. Revised 21 April 2006. Part of the Resource Discovery Network, EEVL provides access to information in engineering, mathematics and computing. Find a database containing thousands of descriptions of specialty Web sites in these subjects, a search engine (EESE) that queries the content of more than 250 subject-related full-text e-journals, and several special databases, including Recent Advances in Manufacturing (RAM) bibliographic database, the SearchLT database (teaching and learning resources) and the Offshore Engineering Information Service. 14 May 2003. Peter Jasco, a professor in the library college at the University of Hawaii at Mănoa, created this search utility out of frustration with the content available at PubScience. It queries multiple resources that provide information related to energy and the sciences. The type of results retrieved depend on the source, but many provide bibliographic citations with abstracts. Keep the queries simple, using phrases (enclose in quotations) if possible. The databases does not support Boolean. 3 January 2001. The American Association for the Advancement of Science offers this current awareness site for reading about the latest research in medicine, health, science and technology. Research institutions and scientific organizations, who have registered with the site, post news releases. On the day I visited, for example, I discovered a news release by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), dated for the next day, that summarized the findings of researchers who studied a possible connection between brain cancer and the use of cell phones.
The site offers a search engine, with advanced features, for finding older news. 25 October 2004. Six federal agencies, including the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency, make available summary information about their research and development projects. Search one or more of the databases simultaneously by keyword. Specific databases include DOE R&D Project Summaries Database, EPA Science Inventory, NIH CRISP Database - Current Awards, NSF Awards Database, SBA Technology Resources Network (Tech-Net) and USDA Current Research Information System (CRIS). Results include hyperlinked titles. Click on the hyperlink to go directly to the matching database record. 1 March 2002. The Department of Commerce's National Technical Information Service and the National Information Services Corporation join to provide subscription-based, single-point access to multiple government databases, including NTIS (government sponsored research in a variety of industries), AGRICOLA (agricultural and life sciences), Energy Science and Technology (basic and applied scientific and technical research literature), Federal Research in Progress (ongoing federally funded projects in the fields of the physical sciences, engineering, and life sciences), AgroBase (agriculture), Nuclear Science Abstracts (international nuclear science and technology literature), RTECS (toxicological information) and NIOSHTIC (occupational safety and health literature). While some of these databases appear elsewhere on the Web for free, there may differences in date coverage and usability. 1 August 2000. HighWire Press, founded by Stanford University, assists in the publication of 210 online medical or science journals. It offers a database for searching the content of these journals.
Search by author(s), title, abstract or keyword to find article summaries and full-text articles. Some journals require registration or paid subscription for full-text access. 24 September 2001. Revised 7 May 2008. Formerly a physical sciences hub of the Resource Discovery Network, this site strives to provide high quality Internet resources for students, researchers and practitioners in the physical sciences, specifically in: astronomy, chemistry, earth sciences, physics, and science history and policy.
19 February 2003. The Institute of Physics, "an international professional body ... established to promote the advancement and dissemination of physics," provides search access to its database of articles. While searching is free, downloading or displaying full-text articles may incur a charge. (Articles published within the past 30 days are free.) Various search options exist, including searching journal subject collections or specific journal titles. You can display summary information about the articles for free in various formats, including HTML, PDF, RTF, compressed PostScript, BibTex, ProCite(r), EndNote, CSV, and ASCII. You can also send resulting citations or abstracts, or a portion of them, to an email address or disk. 21 February 2001. The Ellington Lab at University of Texas at Austin, which hosts BioTech, a biology and chemistry educational resource, offers this dictionary of terms in biochemistry, biotechnology, botany, cell biology and genetics. Use the search box on the left to look up a definition, or the search box on the right to find use of the term in other definitions. Relevant terms within a definition will also be hyperlinked. 19 May 2003. Publisher InterDok Corporation offers this complementary service to its Directory of Published Proceedings. MInd: The Meetings Index is a database containing information about meetings, conferences, symposia and other events that result in published proceedings. Topics covered by the index include science and technology, medical and life sciences, pollution control and ecology and social sciences and humanities. Select from a list of keywords to find information about events, which includes the names of the events, dates, locations, organizers or sponsors, contacts and a link to the Web site. 25 October 2004. This meta search engine enables using one simple query to search several different databases one at a time. Enter keywords connected with AND or OR in the search box in the left-hand frame (The meta search engine does not handle phrase searching. Two words side-by-side default to AND.), and then select one of the databases listed. Search results from the targeted database appear in the right-hand window. If you want to search several sources of scientific articles, books and other documents, this is a good place to start. However, you can only search one database at a time, and you can only run simple queries. 13 November 2001. Document delivery service Infotrieve offers its database of information about journals covering a variety of topics. Search the database for free to find journal titles, publisher, ISSN, language, contact information, and more. The service also lets users view tables of contents, when available. Table of contents coverage extends back several years for some publications. Users may also opt to receive journal table of contents notices by email. 8 January 2003. This site serves as a portal to scientific and technical information and databases available from U.S. government agencies. Browse the collection of resources by subject or search multiple databases simultaneously. Topics include agriculture, veterinary medicine, biology, computers, energy, environment, health and medicine, math, and more. 31 July 2002. Published by John Wiley & Sons during 2001, this reference work features over 200,000 entries covering the abbreviations, symbols and acronyms used in science and technology. You may search or browse the text. 2 April 2001. Elsevier offers this search engine devoted to finding scientific information. Powered by FAST (alltheweb.com), Scirus collects, indexes, and retrieves information pertaining to agricultural and biological sciences, biosciences, chemistry, Earth and planetary sciences, environmental sciences, life sciences, medicine, pharmacology, social and behavioral sciences, and more.
Using the simple search feature on the home page, searchers may enter a phrase, or string several words together with the Boolean "and," and limit the search to a particular field of science. The advanced search page offers more options including the ability to limit a query so that it retrieves articles only. From the results list, searchers also may select "more like this result" to retrieve items similar to one on the hit list.
Because the engine also indexes information from fee-based subscription services, searchers will find peer-reviewed journal articles. Retrieving these articles (called Membership Sources) requires a subscription to Science Direct.
2 June 2000. Currently in beta, Washburn University School of Law offers a database of articles and other commentary appearing in journals, newsletters, and other serial publications on government Web sites. Search by subject, title, or SuDoc number (classification). Clicking through on query matches retrieves the entire article. 19 February 2003. Hosted by the University of Maryland, the Virtual Technical Reports Center provides links to technical reports available either in full-text or as searchable abstracts. Documents available via this extensive index include technical reports, preprints, reprints, dissertations, theses, and research reports. Topics vary, and include the sciences, conservation and environmental law, business, and economics. 14 November 2000. Subtitled "Science Behind the News," this site sponsored by the University of Wisconsin, explains scientific facts and theories behind historical and current events in the news. What caused the Edmund Fitzgerald to sink in the Great Lakes? Is such a tragedy likely to happen again? What are scientists learning about the source and fate of new infections (HIV, Ebola, West Nile, Lyme)? Are genetically altered foods safe? To find these articles, the site offers a subject index and keyword search feature. |
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