Sciences
Article Finder from Infotrieve
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.
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.
Peter Jasco, a professor in the library college at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, 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.
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.
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.
HighWire Press: Search Multiple Journals
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.
Intute: Science, Engineering & Technology
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.
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.
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.
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.
PubList DocSource from Infotrieve
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.
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.
Elsevier offers this search engine devoted to finding scientific information. 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.
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.
Virtual Technical Reports Center
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.
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.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) offers Local Climatological Data, a monthly summary of temperature, relative humidity, precipitation, cloudiness, wind speed and direction observations for several hundred cities in the U.S. and its territories. Summaries are available from July 1996.
