General Databases
While not specific to the sciences, these databases can be good starting points for research papers. They represent a wide variety of material and can assist with everything from giving a general introduction to a topic to providing scholarly, peer-reviewed articles. They can also be good sources for non major courses.
- Web of Science This link opens in a new windowProvides access to citation indexes for sciences, the arts and humanities, and MEDLINE from 1950 to the present. Also includes Journal Citation Reports (see box below) to assess journal rankings and impact factor.
- Academic Search Ultimate This link opens in a new windowFull text for more than 4,500 journals. Contains scholarly and non-scholarly literature in a wide range of disciplines.
- ScienceDirect This link opens in a new windowSource for scientific, technical, and medical research.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Offers full-text access to articles from leading journals in several fields in the humanities, sciences, and social sciences.
- ProQuest Research Library This link opens in a new window
Articles from scholarly journals, popular magazines and newspapers, in many different subject areas.
- Center for Research LibrariesThe Center for Research Libraries acquires and preserves newspapers, journals, documents, archives, and other traditional and digital resources from a global network of sources.
Physics Databases
These databases are specific to physics or at least to the sciences in general. Here you will find popular articles as well as scholarly, peer-reviewed publications on a wide range of topics in physics and other scientific disciplines.
- arXiv.orgThis is an open access repository of articles that have not yet been published but are forthcoming in the physics literature. In physics especially, up to the minute research is important to keep track of. arXiv.org is one of the best places to go for the absolute most recent research in the field.
- Web of Science This link opens in a new windowProvides access to citation indexes for sciences, the arts and humanities, and MEDLINE from 1950 to the present. Also includes Journal Citation Reports (see box below) to assess journal rankings and impact factor.
- ScienceDirect This link opens in a new windowFull-text articles from Elsevier journals on the life, physical, medical, technical, and social sciences, business and management.
- IOPscience This link opens in a new windowInstitute of Physics Science (IOPscience) provides full-text access to many of the leading scientific journals in all aspects of physics. The Institute of Physics (IOP) is a leading learned society whose goal is to promote the advancement and dissemination of knowledge of and education in the science of physics, pure and applied, for the benefit of the public and the members of the Institute.
- GreenFILE This link opens in a new windowCovers articles examining human impact on the environment. with indexing, abstracts, and some Open Access full text.
- Public Knowledge Project (PKP) This link opens in a new window
This link opens in a new window
PKP is a multi-university initiative developing (free) open source software and conducting research to improve the quality and reach of scholarly publishing - SciFinder This link opens in a new window
Abstracts and full text of chemistry literature and information on specific chemical structures and reactions.
Learn how to register your account. Search SciFinder FAQs.
- SciFinder First Time UserFirst time users of SciFinder Scholar must create an account using this link. If you have any trouble with access, please contact me at rtanner@rollins.edu
- AsterankAsterank is an public asteroid database containing information about more than 600,000 asteroids. (Very cool to look at, even if you're not doing any astronomy research!)