LibGuides: Biology: A Guide to Library Research: Overview

Welcome!

This is a guide to biology resources at the Thompson Library. Below are some of the databases commonly used in biology research. For a more comprehensive list, visit the A-Z Database List. Pages on finding books, ebooks, and articles are also available, as well as some possible for areas of research. Please feel free to ask for assistance any time you need it!

Frequently Used Databases

ScienceDirect (Elsevier Books & Journals Online) This link opens in a new window
Chemistry, chemical engineering, clinical medicine, computer science, earth & planetary sciences, economics, engineering, energy & technology, environmental science & technology, life sciences, materials science, mathematics, physics, astronomy.
Includes over 2,000 journals and 35,000 books published by Elsevier Science and its subsidiary publishers, including Academic Press, Cell Press, Pergamon, Mosby, and Saunders journals. Coverage is particularly strong for the life and physical sciences, medicine, and technical fields, but also includes some social sciences and humanities.

Includes chemistry, chemical engineering, clinical medicine, computer science, earth & planetary sciences, economics, engineering, energy & technology, environmental science & technology, life sciences, materials science, mathematics, physics, astronomy.

Covers 1996-present.
Scopus This link opens in a new window
International multidisciplinary indexing & abstracting database for scientific, medical, technical, and social sciences.
International multi-disciplinary indexing & abstracting database for scientific, medical, technical, and social sciences. Searchable by cited-reference (forward citation searching). Covers journals, patents, and websites (16,500+ titles) from 4,000+ publishers,1995-present. with limited earlier coverage.
SpringerLink: Books, Journals, and More This link opens in a new window
1998-present. Behavioral science, biomedical & life sciences, business, economics, chemistry, materials science, computer science, earth/environmental science, engineering, social sciences, law, mathematics, statistics, medicine, physics, astronomy.
Personal copies of some books can be purchased for $39.99 each through a service offered by Springer called MyCopy. The MyCopy offer is currently valid for over 14,000 Springer eBooks. More info about MyCopy.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Full-text access to the archives of core scholarly journals in the arts, humanities, social sciences, and science, plus full text ebooks and open access content.
Access extended! Some journals in JSTOR are available for U-M Flint until June 30, 2023, after which they are expected to become unavailable. Many other journals will remain accessible.

Mostly 3-5 years & older full text. African American studies, anthropology, botany, business, ecology, economics, education, general science, geography, history, language & literature, mathematics, philosophy, political science, sociology, statistics.

Dates of coverage vary by journal title. All go back to the very first issue published, but most have a "moving wall" embargo that excludes issues from the most recent X years (where X can be anywhere from 0 up to 10 years, depending on the particular journal; most are in the 3 to 5 year embargo range).

Hint: Use documents to find useful keywords and concepts, and retrieve matching JSTOR content, via JSTOR Text Analyzer

As a public service during the COVID-19 pandemic, JSTOR provided subscribing libraries access to journals free of charge. This expanded access is expected to expire on June 30, 2023, but the Thompson Library will continue to have permanent access to hundreds of journals through JSTOR. Please contact the Thompson Library if you have any questions.
Web of Science: All Databases This link opens in a new window
Provides cross-search of multiple Web of Science databases. Mobile app available.
[User's guide]
Includes:
- Web of Science Core Collection (1900-present)
- BIOSIS Previews (1926-present)
- Current Contents Connect (1998-present)
- Data Citation Index (1900-present)
- KCI-Korean Journal Database (1980-present)
- MEDLINE (1950-present)
- Russian Science Citation Index (2005-present)
- SciELO Citation Index (2002-present)
- Zoological Record (1864-present)
- Journal Citation Reports (1997-present) upper right under Products
PubMed This link opens in a new window
Comprises more than 21 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books.
PubMed indexes over 4,000 biomedical, nursing, dentistry and related journals, with over 21 million citations in MEDLINE, PreMEDLINE and related databases. PubMed is produced by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and provides links between article citations and relevant data in other NCBI ENTREZ databases, including Nucleotide and Protein Sequences, Protein Structures, Complete Genomes, Taxonomy, and others.

Proximity searching is available, which allows you to find terms within specified distances from each other.

Includes journal literature, 1950-present; selected online books. This version uses Outside Tool to link to resources at U-M Flint.

CoCites, "a citation-based method for searching scientific literature," is a Chrome- and Firefox-compatible browser plugin you can use with PubMed.