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How to find out in Life Sciences

Introduction

The aim of this guide is to help you find information in Life Sciences. Whether you are looking for information for a project or dissertation or just looking for some facts, figures or addresses. The guide is aimed primarily at staff and students of Heriot-Watt University. However, it may also be of use to anyone looking for printed or electronic information in the field of Life Sciences but please note that access to our electronic resources is restricted to Heriot-Watt staff and students.

For staff and students see Distance Learning and off-campus access AND Heriot-Watt Virtual Private Network (HW Connectra VPN) for off-campus access information.

If you require further advice or assistance, ask us for help.

What's new in the Library?

Visit Spineless? the Library blog to find out.

Information skills

A vast amount of information available to you from the library and other sources. Pinpointing the information you want and evaluating different sources can seem a bit daunting and can take up a lot of time. Information skills will help you to carry out these tasks more effectively by helping you to: -

define your topic
find the information you require
select quality information
organise and record the information used

Information skills will make information seeking more fruitful and time efficient. Sources which are of good quality, used to good effect and which are well documented will also contribute to the quality of your project and ultimately to the mark you are given.

Basic information skills

Literature searching > taking references

Information skills tutorials

Basic information skills

Facts and figures

If you want brief factual information try-

Dictionaries, encyclopaedias and data compendia found in Quick Reference section of the library on Level 2
Search electronic reference resources
See the Reference Materials section of this guide for more information

Summary information on a topic

Consult a recently published textbook. Use the catalogue to find appropriate titles.
Locate a review article from a journal. Search using databases. Most will enable you to limit to review articles.

Detailed information on a topic

Consult a recent journal article. Search using databases
Look also for conference proceedings or theses/dissertations

Keeping up-to-date with a topic

Sign up for current awareness service/s. These can send details of recently published articles, tables of contents of latest journal issues and search updates direct to your desktop via email or RSS feed.

Finding help

Ask us a question
Use help pages, guides or on-line tutorials offered by individual databases, internet sites etc
Contact your Subject Librarian

Literature searching

At some point in your studies or research, you will be required to search the literature to find out what has been published on topic. How you go about this can have a major impact on the amount, relevance and quality of the information you locate. Equally, the information you find and how you use it will have a bearing on the quality of your final assignment or project. The steps below will assist you in searching the literature effectively and efficiently:-

Define topic

Plan search

Find relevant information sources

Find relevant information (literature searching)

Evaluate information

Organise & record information (taking references)

Define topic

Defining your topic is a vital first step in the search process. It forms the basis of the whole search. If you don't know what you're looking for - the chances are you won't find it. Equally, if you don't ask the right questions you won't get the right answers. Therefore, it is very important to have a clear, focused question for your assignment/research. Its a good idea to talk to your lecturer/supervisor to clarify any ambiguities at the outset.

Plan search

Planning your search is also a vitally important stage in the search process. It outlines how you intend to go about searching. Working this out before you start can save a lot of wasted time and effort. Having a plan will enable you to work in a methodical way. This systematic approach allows you to see what results are retrieved at each stage of the search. It is important to bear in mind that searching is an iterative process. This means your are unlikely to find exactly what you are looking for first time. Revising and re-running searches is common practice. Having a search plan makes it easier to modify and re-execute your search.

To plan your search, use the following steps:-

Identify key concepts - highlight keywords in research/essay question
Build a search strategy
- list keywords for each concept
  - include alternative terms for keywords (synonyms, American spellings, etc)
- list possible broader or narrower terms for keywords
- Decide how you want keywords to be combined (e.g. with AND, OR, NOT). These are called boolean or logical operators.
- It's a good idea to get this all down on paper to create a 'search map'
Set limits e.g.
- decide what years to search
- decide what type of material is required (eg original articles, review articles, etc)
- decide whether you want to limit to English language documents

Find relevant information sources

Once you have defined your topic and formulated a search plan, the next step is to identify relevant information sources to consult or search. There are some useful resources to help with this including guidebooks and the following sources:

Library website

The library website is an excellent launch-pad to a wide range of Heriot Watt and external information resources - including catalogues, electronic journal lists, how to find out guides, databases and internet resources.

Catalogues

Use the Heriot Watt University Library catalogue to find books and journals held in Heriot Watt University Library. Consult the catalogue help pages for tips on searching. Search in other libraries' catalogues if you don't find what you are looking for in Heriot Watt University Library.

Electronic journals

Find electronic journals by using the following -

library catalogue

electronic journals A-Z list

electronic journal providers (all subjects)

electronic journal providers (Biological Sciences)

Most electronic journal sites will offer help pages, guides or on-line tutorials to assist you in searching. Although many search functions will be common across journal providers, each will have its own features. The guides will help you get to know individual ways of working.

Databases

The library offers access to a wide range of databases which will enable you to search for journal articles (abstracts or full-text), conference proceedings, etc. Use links below to link to databases information:-

Most databases will offer help pages, guides or on-line tutorials to assist you in searching. Although many search functions will be common across databases, each will have its own features. The guides will help you get to know individual ways of working.

Each database will have a different scope and coverage - although some may overlap in the subjects they cover. Use 'information' or 'scope note' buttons within databases to find out exactly what the subject coverage is. This will ensure use of a resource appropriate to the subject you are searching for.

Internet

As well as books and journals you may wish to consult websites for your projects and assignments. Search and browse for relevant web resources using our Internet resources (Life Sciences) or the following services:

Google Scholar

Search scholarly literature using the familiar Google search engine.

CSA

This services allow you to perform a search across library databases and public websites simultaneously. Automatically retrieves 'Web Sites' based on your search terms which are displayed as an option to view in your search results.

Intute

Finding quality information on the web can be an issue. To help ensure access to robust and/or scholarly information sources try Intute. This provides access to a series of Internet resource catalogues containing descriptions of high quality Internet sites, selected and described by specialists from within UK academia and affiliated organisations. Value-added services such as interactive Web tutorials and alerting services are also provided to enable users to make more of their time on the Internet.

Find relevant information (literature searching)

Once you have defined your topic, formulated a search plan and identified relevant information sources the next step is to search the resources for information. With books and journals this will be a matter of scanning and reading the material you have located. However, with catalogues, databases and some internet resources, further searching is required. Most of these resources will offer help pages or on-line tutorials to assist you in the specifics of searching each resource.

Details of how to build a search strategy are given in the Plan Search section of this page.

Hints & tips

To obtain an overview or critical analysis of a topic search for review articles. Review articles may also give extensive bibliographies referring you to other key texts. Most databases will allow you to restrict your search to review articles by limiting by publication type.

Start to build a collection of keywords for your subject. Highlight terms used in the literature you find which are used to describe your topic. You can then use these as terms for further searching.

Consult the user guide or help pages of each database you are using. Some may even have on-line tutorials to work through. Most resources will share common features but may also have unique commands and other individual features.

Further reading

371.3BEL

BELL. Doing your research project: A guide for first time researchers in education and social sciences (1999)

371.3BLA

Blaxter. How to research (2001)

371.3GAS

GASH. Effective literature searching for research (2002)

371.3LUC

LUCK. Your student research project (1999)

Evaluate information

Once you have done your literature search the next step is to evaluate the quality of information you have found - particularly if found on the Internet. Depending on the level of the research you are doing - this process can be more or less involved. The main points to look for are:

Authority - is author/organisation reputable, what credentials do they have?
Objectivity - look for bias, signs of vested interest from the author/s, advertising, etc
Accuracy - are there obvious factual errors, spelling mistakes or grammatical errors?
Currency - is date of publication clear, does date meet your requirements?

Useful websites

Internet Detective

Interactive tutorial evaluating the quality of Internet resources

Intute Virtual Training suite

Interactive tutorials on a variety of subjects.

Organise & record information (taking references)

Taking references is an important part of the study process enabling you to make use of and cite the work of others properly. Failure to acknowledge your sources using citing & referencing may lead to accusations of plagiarism. For more information on this see the University's Student Guide to Plagiarism.

Its a good idea to note all relevant references in full as you find them, even if you are not sure how useful they might be. Also, keep a note of where you find your references - you may need this if you apply for an inter-library loan. If you take a photocopy, make sure that you keep a note of the periodical title and volume number, or book details, from which it was taken, in case you wish to cite it. It can be very difficult to check back later.

You might want to keep details of all your references in a card file or notebook or easier still by saving them to reference management software such as EndNote or EndNote Web

Recording details in full as you go along will help you:-

compile your bibliography or reading list
enable you to link points you make in your text to evidence of your reading so helping -
- add weight to your argument
- avoid accusations of plagiarism - see the University's Student Guide to Plagiarism
submit all details required for inter-library loan requests

Citation styles

It is important that bibliographic details are recorded in an accurate and consistent manner. To help with this, there are a number of formats or citation styles which can be used to record these details. The style you use may depend on what your School prefers, your subject area or if you are publishing, which journal you are writing for. Once you have decided on a style, it is important to be accurate and maintain a consistent style within your list of references. There are numerous different styles of citing & referencing. However, essential information to note for a book includes author, initials, title, edition (if not first), place of publication, publisher and year of publication. e.g.

MAIZELL, R.E. How to find chemical information. (3rd Edn.) New York: John Wiley, 1998.

Essential information to note for a periodical article includes author, title of the article, title of the periodical, volume, part number, year and pages, e.g.

ELROD, M.J. and SAYKALLY, R.J. Many body effects of intermolecular forces. Chemical Reviews, 94(7), 1994, 75-97.

Many chemical journals use their own styles, which may reorganise or omit some of the information above.

The Royal Society of Chemistry has its own format in which the reference shown above would appear as:

M.J. Elrod and R.J. Saykally, Chem Rev., 1994, 94, 75.

More information on using the RSC style and on citing and referencing is available from the University of Leicester guide.

Using the RSC style, the journal name is abbreviated using the standard abbreviations of the Chemical Abstracts Service Source Index (CASSI). A listing of CASSI abbreviations can be found in the first issue of each new year's RSC journals ( e.g. Journal of the Chemical Society) or on the RSC website

Citing & referencing guides & tutorials

Portsmouth University interactive referencing guide / University of Bath / University of Reading

Monash University Library: n-line tutorial on citing and referencing

Chicago style guides:

Chicago Manual of Style (1993)

Available in: Quick reference 810.61

Chicago Manual of style / University of Wisconsin Madison: Writing Center

Harvard Style guides

Bournemouth University / Leeds University / University of Leicester

Vancouver Style guides

Leicester University / British Medical Association- Reference Styles

Guides to citing electronic materials

Electronic style: a guide to citing electronic information

Available in : Quick Reference 810.61Li

IFLA / Online! A reference guide to using Internet sources: Citation styles

Information skills tutorials

Finding Information Tutorial

Information literacy tutorial from the University of Southern Queensland.

InfoSkills

This is an openly available WebCT module for information skills developed by Manchester Metropolitan University. Username and password both: infoskills_guest

Internet Detective

Interactive tutorial evaluating the quality of Internet resources

Safari

Developed by the Open University covering various information skills.

TONIC

Overview of the Internet with step-by-step, practical guidance to using search engines and advanced searching of the Internet

For more hints on literature searching and how to manage your research project see:

Dane. Research methods

371.3 DAN

Fink. Conducting research literature reviews

301.07 FIN

Friedman. The research tool kit: putting it all together

301.97 FRI

Gash. Effective literature searching for research.

371.3 GAS

Irving. No sweat!: the indispensable guide to reports and dissertations

810.61 IRV

Kumar. Research methodology: a step-by-step guide for beginners

301.07 KUM

Luck. Your student research project.

371.3 LUC

Potter. Doing postgraduate research

371.3 POT

Rudestam. Surviving your dissertation: A comprehensive guide to content and process

810.61 RUD

Shuter. How (not) to do research

371.3 SHU

Silyn-Roberts.Writing for science: a practical handbook for science, engineering and technology students

810.61 SIL

Walliman. Your research project: a step-by-step guide for the first time researcher

371.3 WAL

Guidebooks

If you are fairly new to your subject area, you may want to use a guidebook to get a broad overview of the available information sources. These published guides give sources of information on particular subjects, just like this 'How to Find Out Guide'. They will be more comprehensive and will list sources not necessarily held in Heriot-Watt University Library. Search for guidebooks using the Library catalogue.

Books and eBooks

Use the Library Catalogue to look for books and eBooks held in Heriot Watt University library.

Most catalogue entries have a classmark indicating the location of printed books on the library shelf. Standard loan Life Sciences books are shelved numerically by classmark on Level 3 of the library with the classmark shown on the spine of each book.

Some useful classmarks in the field of Life Sciences are listed below.

Applied Psychology
General Psychology	150
Health Psychology	613
Physical Fitness/ Exercise Psychology	613.7
Sports Psychology	796.01
Biology
General Biology	574
Biochemistry	574.192
Cellular & Molecular Biology	574.8
Evolution and Genetics	575
Microbiology	576
Biotechnology	576.16
General Botany	581
Specific Plants and Groups of Plants	582-589
General Zoology	591
Specific Animals and Groups of Animals	592-599
Biomedical engineering	610.28
Brewing & Distilling	663
Food Technology	664
Marine Science & Environmental Management
Ecology	574.5
Marine Biology	574.92
Agriculture and related technologies	630
Fisheries and Fish Farming	639
Sports & Exercise Science
Nutrition / Sports Nutrition	574.13 / 612.3
Diseases & Injuries Caused by Physical or Chemical Factors	574.24
Medicine	610
Anatomy/Physiology	611 and 612
Biomechanics	612.014
Sports Medicine	612.044
Musculoskeletal system	612.7
Neuroscience	612.8
Health Psychology	613
Physical Fitness / Exercise Psychology	613.7
Toxicology	615.9
Medical Sciences / Diseases	616
Sports Psychology	796.01

Other library catalogues

If Heriot Watt University Library does not have the book you are looking for, try searching in other libraries' catalogues. It is possible to arrange reference or borrowing rights to many other libraries - including other university libraries in Edinburgh and the National Library of Scotland. See Access to other libraries for Heriot Watt Staff and Students for more information.

Other sources

Google Scholar

Enables searching across a broad range of scholarly literature (books, journal articles, theses, preprints) from multiple sources. Results ranked by relevance and citedness. Some full-text availability. Effective and efficient for natural language searching and looking for known items. Less precise for systematic, academic searching due to opacity of coverage and scope and lack of descriptor searching.

Google Book Search

Useful for locating book information. Full-text books available for some out of copyright materials. Contents and extracts available for others.

Amazon.co.uk

The UK branch of the well-known Internet bookshop also has a searchable database of books in print.

WH Smith-Life Sciences

View books from the online bookshop

Blackwell's online bookshop - Life Sciences

View books from the online bookshop

Newly published titles in Life Sciences (compiled by the Subject Librarian)

Also look for recently published bibliographies which cover your subject area. These may be listed in guidebooks or you could search for the keyword 'bibliography' in various library catalogues.

Inter-Library Loans
If the book you wish to see is not held in Heriot-Watt University Library you can apply for it through the Inter-Library Loans Service.

Journals and periodicals

Periodicals are often the first place where new research findings are published and are therefore an extremely important source of information. The Library has a collection of scientific print journals and periodicals on Level 4 and a range of electronic journals accessible over the Internet.

Our print and electronic journals can be found using the Library Catalogue. You can also search for our journal titles from our journals page. Most of the printed journals for Life Sciences are located on Level 4 of the library. However, the psychology journals are stored on Level 1. They are organised alphabetically by journal title within each class number.

Heriot Watt Library journal services

American Society for Microbiology (ASM)

Browse and search all content from 11 of the societies journals plus mini-review collection of all journals (mini-reviews published in the last 12 months)

Annual reviews

Search & browse full-text content from mid 1990s onwards for annual reviews in biochemistry, cell & developmental biology, genetics, microbiology, nutrition, physiology, phytopathology, plant biology and psychology.

Blackwell (access via Wiley InterScience)

Search contents of 850 plus journals in various subjects. We subscribe to some of the titles available - offering one or two journals in each of the fields of biology, food science, microbiology, psychology and marine and environmental subjects.

Cambridge Journals Online (CJO)

Cambridge Journals Online (CJO) allows free online access to the full-text of those journals that the library subscribes to in printed form. In most cases the full-text is available from 1997 onwards. It also provides access to the table of contents of many other journals. Main areas for Life Sciences are psychology with some biology titles, a couple in nutrition and one in marine science.

EbscoHost

Offers cross searchable databases in business, sport science and psychology (Business Source Elite, PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES and SportDiscus). RSS feeds available for saved searches and journal tables of contents.

Human Kinetics
Publisher specialising in sport and physical activity. We subscribe to a small selection of full-text journals from this publisher covering physiology & health, sport psychology and nutrition.

IngentaConnect

Search and browse thousands of publications from numerous publishers in all subjects. Full-text available for hundreds of journal titles with good coverage of Life Science subjects. Particularly good for biology, psychology and anatomy & physiology. Also significant coverage for environmental and food sciences.

Informaworld
A one-stop site hosting journals, eBooks, abstract databases and reference works published by Taylor & Francis, Routledge, Psychology Press and Informa Healthcare. Search and browse content but full-text is limited to the journal we subscribe to - mainly covering the built environment and economics but with some titles in psychology and sport science and one or two in biology.

Metapress

Allows searching and browsing for thousands of scholarly publications from hundreds of leading publishers. Full-text access is limited to some journals titles across the spectrum of Life Science subjects

Nature

Holdings: Vol. 385 (1997) to date

Nature RSS Feeds / Nature podcasts

Oxford Journals (OUP)
Includes a small selection of psychology related journals. Current issues available online for print subscription titles plus a free archive of other titles up to 1995.

Portland Press
Portland Press is the publishing arm of the Biochemical Society and we subscribe to 3 of their journals. In addition, the Portland Press online archive is freely available. This allows access to full-text from ALL Portland Press journals subject to a 12 month embargo. Every year in January, the online content for all the previous years will become freely available. However, full access to the current year of the online journal is restricted to institutions that have a subscription.

PsycArticles

PsycARTICLES, from the American Psychological Association (APA), is a definitive source of full-text, peer-reviewed scholarly and scientific articles in psychology. The database contains more than 100,000 articles from 59 journals - 48 published by the American Psychological Association (APA) and 11 from allied organizations. It includes all journal articles, letters to the editor and errata from each journal. Coverage spans 1894 to present.

Accessed via: Ebscohost

Sage Journals Online

ScienceDirect

Springer LINK

Multidisciplinary database

Wiley InterScience

Other sources of electronic journals

There are a number of open access (OA) journals in the field of Life Sciences. OA journals are free at the point of use. They represent different publishing models whereby 1) publication is funded by authors (or their funding bodies) who pay to have their research published, rather than by individuals or institutions who pay a subscription to the journal in order to buy access to the research once publish 2) publications are made freely available after a certain amount of time eg 12 months after publication and/or 3) publications are made freely available in digital repositories.

Biomed Central journals

BioMed Central is an independent publishing house committed to providing immediate free access to peer-reviewed biomedical research. BioMed Central has a portfolio of over 100 journals ranging from the highly selective, general interest Journal of Biology, which publishes both online and in print, to a range of specialist online only journals.

British Medical Journal

Full-text to some material.

Cell Press Archive

Free access to the recent online archive of Cell and the other premier journals of the Cell Press collection. Includes content that is 12 months old or older and dating back to 1995. Each month as new issues are published, the year old issues will be added to this freely accessible archive.

Access will be available on both Science Direct and on the Cell Press journal sites [select a journal title, then the 'Archive']

The titles included are:

Cell / Immunity / Neuron / Molecular Cell / Structure / Current Biology / Developmental Cell / Cancer Cell / Chemistry & Biology / Cell Metabolism.

Directory of open access journals

This service covers free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals. It aims to cover all subjects and languages. There are now over 1000 journals in the directory.

FreeMedicalJournals.com

Site created to promote the free availability of full text medical journals on the Internet.

HighWire journals

HighWire Press hosts the largest repository of free full-text life science articles in the world, with more than 600,000 free, full-text articles online.

Portland Press Online Archive

The online archive for all Portland Press journals is free to anyone with internet access. Every year in January, the online content for all the previous years will become free. However, full access to the current year of the online journal is restricted to institutions that have a subscription. To access, select a journal name then the Browse Archive or Search Archive.

Psycoloquy

A a refereed international, interdisciplinary electronic journal sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA) and indexed by APA's PsycINFO and the Institute for Scientific Information. Psycoloquy publishes articles and peer commentary in all areas of psychology as well as cognitive science, neuroscience, behavioral biology, artificial intelligence, robotics/vision, linguistics and philosophy.

Public Library of Science journals

The Public Library of Science makes original published reports of ideas, discoveries, and research results in the life sciences and medicine (and eventually other fields) freely available online. PLoS will initially publish two journals - PLoS Biology and PLoS Medicine (Fall 2004) - that will compete head-to-head with the leading existing publications in biology and medical research, publishing the best peer-reviewed original research articles, timely essays, and other features.

PLoSOnNE (eISSN-1932-6203) is an international, open-access, online publication from the Public Library of Science (PLoS). PLoS ONE reports on primary research from any scientific discipline and aims to publish accepted papers within 10-14 days. Editorial board members decide on suitability of paper and peer review is open to the scientific community via online discussion and comments.

PubMed Central
PubMed Central is a web-based archive of journal literature for all of the life sciences. It is being developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM). A-Z journals list http://pubmedcentral.nih.gov/front-page/fp.fcgi

Washington DC Principles for Free Access to Science

Link to journals which give free access to selected articles and some to full journal content.

Site listing leading (mainly US but some European) not-for-profit medical/scientific societies and publishers (with links to journals) who have signed their commitment to providing free access and wide dissemination of published research findings. As not-for-profit publishers, they have introduced and will continue to support forms of free access including :

Selected important articles of interest made freely available online from time of publication
Full-text of journals freely available to everyone worldwide either immediately or within months of publication, depending on each publisher's business and publishing requirements.

For further sources of open access journals see the page on Digital Repositories

Print journals in other Libraries

If the journal or periodical you are looking for is not held in Heriot-Watt University Library it may be possible for you to consult it elsewhere in Edinburgh for example at the National Library of Scotland, or in Edinburgh University Library. You can check the periodical holdings of these libraries and the libraries of most other Scottish academic and research institutions by searching the SALSER database.

It is possible to arrange reference or borrowing rights to many other libraries - including other university libraries in Edinburgh and the National Library of Scotland. See Access to other libraries for Heriot Watt Staff and Students for more information.

You may also apply for through the Inter-Library Loans Service for copy articles from periodicals not held at Heriot-Watt University Library.

Finding journals published in a subject area

To find out information on periodicals published in your subject area you can consult the reference works shown below:

Willings Press Guide

Quick Reference : 011.05 WIL

Serials in the British Library

Inter-Library Loans Dept

Ulrich's International Periodical Directory

Inter-Library Loans Dept

British Library Document Supply Centre: Current Serials Received

This is a searchable index of over 64,000 periodicals currently received by the British Library Document Supply Centre. The database can be used to find periodicals by title or keyword, and it is also useful as a guide to which titles would be available through Inter-Library Loans.

Jake

Jake (Jointly Administered Knowledge Environment) can be used to find where a journal is indexed.

Publist.com

PubList.com is a comprehensive directory of information about more than 150,000 publications and more than 8000 newspapers around the world.

Genamics Journal Seek
Genamics JournalSeek is the largest completely categorized database of freely available journal information available on the internet.

Journal abbreviations

ISI Journals Abbreviation Index

Journal Abbreviation Sources

A registry of web resources that list or provide access to the full title of journal abbreviations.

Journal abbreviation links (University of Bath)

Articles

Many thousands of articles are published each week in periodicals or journals. How do you go about finding articles on the topic which interests you? The most efficient way to do this is to search one or more of the databases to which the Library subscribes or which are freely available.

Databases index millions of articles, usually covering specific subject areas, and can be searched in a variety of ways. Searches retrieve bibliographic records, often with abstracts and sometimes with links to the full-text of the article. If there is no link to the full-text within the database check whether the library has the article in print or electronic form using the catalogue or A-Z list of electronic journals. If the full article is not available, either electronically or in print, it is usually possible to obtain articles through the Inter-Library Loan Service.

Review articles: Review articles are excellent sources for getting on overview of a topic as they pull together and synthesize selected journal articles. Most databases will allow you to limit your search to review articles. Review articles may be published as special articles in primary journals but some journals specialise in reviews.

Databases A-Z

Please note: you may print or download a reasonable quantity of information from these resources for your personal, non-commercial use. You may not systematically print or download substantial quantities of information or distribute information to unauthorized third parties.

Agricultural and Environmental Biotechnology Abstracts
Covering biotechnological techniques in food industry, agriculture, and environment
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

Algology Mycology and Protozoology Abstracts (Microbiology C)
Reproduction, growth, life cycles, biochemistry, genetics
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

ANTE (Abstracts in New Technology and Engineering)
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

Applied Science & Technology Full Text
Good source of trade and industrial publications, journals of professional and technical societies, and specialized subject periodicals, as well as special issues such as buyers' guides, directories, and conference proceedings.

Aqualine
Water resources, treatment, pollution
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

ASFA Aquaculture Abstracts
Aquaculture, culture of fish and other organisms
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

ASFA (Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts)
Aquaculture, oceanography, marine environments
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

ASFA Marine Biotechnology Abstracts
Molecular biotechnology, cell/tissue culture
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

ASFA 1: Biological Sciences and Living Resources
Marine, freshwater, and brackish water organisms
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

ASFA 2: Ocean Technology, Policy and Non-Living Resources
Oceanography, limnology, coastal structures
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

ASFA 3: Aquatic Pollution and Environmental Quality
Aquatic pollution, prevention and control
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

ASSIA (Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts)
Social services, psychology, sociology, health information
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

Bacteriology Abstracts (Microbiology B)
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

BioEngineering Abstracts
Biomedical engineering, biomaterials, biotechnology
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

Biological Sciences
Biomedicine, biotechnology, zoology and ecology, agriculture, veterinary science
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

Biology Digest
Biology, life sciences
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

Biosis Previews

Biology, life sciences
Accessed via: Web Of Knowledge

Biotechnology and Bioengineering Abstracts
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

Calcium and Calcified Tissue Abstracts
Biology of bones and teeth, ubiquitous role of ionic calcium
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

Chemoreception Abstracts
Biology and sensory studies of taste, smell, and pheromones
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

Coaching Science Abstracts
Applied sport science

CogPrints

Psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, computer science

Compendex (via Engineering Village 2)

Conference Papers Index
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

CSA Illumina

A useful feature of CSA Ilumina is that it enables you to format the output from the database/s (ie the references you find) by selecting from a range of citation styles.

CSA Neurosciences Abstracts
Neurobiology, motor and sensory systems, memory, Alzheimer's disease
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

EbscoHost

Ecology Abstracts
Aquatic ecosystems, terrestrial ecosystems, human ecology
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

EIS: Digests of Environmental Impact Statements
Air transportation, defence programs, parks, refuges, forests
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

Environmental Engineering Abstracts
Air and water quality, environmental safety, energy production
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

Environmental Sciences & Pollution Management
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

Flavouring Agents Database

Food Additives Database

Genetics Abstracts
Chromosomes, evolutionary genetics, cell cycle
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

Health and Safety Science Abstracts
Public health, safety, and industrial hygiene
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

Human Genome Abstracts
Gene cloning, gene therapy, genetic screening
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

Human Population & Natural Resource Management
Human population, control, and effect on natural resource management
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

IBSS (International Bibliography of the Social Sciences)

Accessed via: Ovid Online

Immunology Abstracts
Immunization, autoimmunity, genetics
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

Index to Theses

Industrial and Applied Microbiology Abstracts (Microbiology A)
Food Microbiology, microbial resistance, fermentation
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

Journal Citation Reports
Accessed via: Web Of Knowledge

Linguistics & Language Behavior Abstracts
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

Medical and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology Abstracts
Genetic engineering, antibodies, patents
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

MEDLINE (1999 to present)
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

Other sources

Google Scholar

Enables searching across a broad range of scholarly literature (journal articles, theses, preprints) from multiple sources. Results ranked by relevance and citedness. Some full-text availability. Effective and efficient for for natural language searching and looking for known items. Less precise for systematic, academic searching due to opacity of coverage and scope and lack of descriptor searching.

WorldWideScience.org

Prototype for a global science gateway connecting you to national and international scientific databases

Science Research Portal

A free, publicly available web portal allowing access to numerous scientific journals and public science databases. Depending on the source, full text documents may be available. In the event full text is not available, the results pull up an abstract of the article and a link to the source, which may require payment. Check first with the library to see if the full text is available.

BiologyBrowser

A free website produced by Thomson Scientific enables browsing and searching of online literature including some full text papers across the biological sciences. Also available within Web of Knowledge.

Digital Repositories

Current awareness and research in progress

Keeping up to date with newly published journal articles can be very time-consuming, however there are many tools to make this process easier.

It is possible to set up alerting services which notify you of the latest -

journal tables of contents
search results
citation alerts (ie when your favourite papers have been newly cited by others).

These services can be set up within databases as -

email alerts (eg tables of contents and search results sent to your email address when they become available). Most of the library's databases and electronic journal services offer this service

and/or

RSS feeds

Most of the library's databases and electronic journals will offer an email alerting service and some also offer RSS feeds for keeping up to date. Here are just a few examples for Life Sciences:-

Biomed Central journal tables of contents [feeds on journal homepages]
Blackwell Synergy [feeds on journal homepages]
Cambridge Journals Online
Cell Press
Ebscohost
Ingentaconnect [feeds on journal homepages]
Nature
Oxford University Press - [go to the journal page to subscribe see "XML RSS feed" link]
ScienceDirect
Web of Science via Web of Knowledge - when you save a search history you have the option to create an RSS feed to access view new results. You can also set up an email citation alert from the database record for a paper. If this paper is cited by others added to Web of Science you will be alerted about this by email.
ZETOC RSS info ZETOC - very broad journal coverage from the British Library's table of contents service.
The Library blog Spineless? also has an RSS feed

Recent research and research in progress

Search conference proceedings to find out what has been presented at recent meetings.

Other possible sources of recent research and research in progress are recently produced disserations and theses from which authors may be publishing papers.

The following sources may also provide information on current research activities:-

Scottish Research: a good starting point to finding out what is going on in Scottish research

National Research Register : UK based health-related research (NHS)

Research Councils UK and/or other funding bodies.

Intermediate Technology Institute - Life Sciences

Intermediary Technology Institutes (ITIs) have been created to provide a platform for greater economic success across the major knowledge-based sectors in Scotland - including Life Sciences. The ITI is designed to be a centre or “hub” for identifying, commissioning, managing and diffusing pre-competitive research.

Community of Science

Scottish Funding Council - Information for Universities

Further links

Current Awareness Services - Heriot Watt Library page

Internet Resources Newsletter

Keep up to date with new resources made available on the Internet

Internet resources

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

3-A Programme
Standards and practices for the sanitary design, fabrication, installation and cleanability of food equipment or systems.

ActionBioscience.org

A non-commercial, educational web site created to promote bioscience literacy

Agrigate

Agriculture, forestry, environment, food science

AIS Sports Nutrition

Australian Institute of Sport sports nutrition web site

American College of Sports Medicine

Arkive - Images of Life on Earth

A digital library of films, photographs and audio recordings of the world’s species.

Bad Bug Book (Foodborne Pathogenic Microorganisms and Natural Toxins Handbook)
Gives basic facts regarding foodborne pathogenic microorganisms and natural toxins.Includes information from the Food & Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, the USDA Food Safety Inspection Service, and the National Institutes of Health.

Best environmental directories

Biodirectory

BiologyBrowser

A free website produced by Thomson Scientific giving access to websites, journal information and some full text papers across the biological sciences. Also available within Web of Knowledge.

BioMed Central
BioMed Central is a collection of peer-reviewed journals that publish biomedical research free of charge. All articles are available in full-text format. View list of freely available journals here.

Biomedical Science Histology Guide

A guide produced by the School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Leeds. Aims to give a virtual experience of using the microscope using interactive images, quizzes, etc.

BRENDA

Comprehensive Enzyme Information System

Brewing Research International

Bristol Biomedical Image Archive

Online collection of images for use in teaching and learning. As a general rule, the images can be used free of charge in learning and teaching.

British Beer and Pub Association (previously Brewers and Licensed Retailers Association)

British National Formulary

Complete text of the BNF. Registration required to view this area of the website. Access to all other areas of the BNF website is completely unrestricted and does not require registration.

British Nutrition Foundation
Includes information about specific food groups and news of latest developments.

BUBL Information Service: A national information service for the higher education community
Contains selected internet resources covering all academic subject areas.

Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport and Physical Activity

Organization working in partnership with Sport Canada to achieve gender equity in sport.

Candidate regulatory sequence elements for cell cycle dependent transcription in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Identification of short sequence elements involved in the expression of co-regulated genes

CCFRA list of useful web sites for the food industry

Cell Biology Laboratory Manual

Cell and Molecular Biology Online

CERCLA list of hazardous substances

List containing substances which are considered to be a threat to human health produced by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry

Center for Conservation Biology Network

Coaching Science Abstracts - free US based service

Cochrane Library

A source of reliable and up-to-date information on the effects of interventions in health care. The Cochrane Library consists of a regularly updated collection of evidence-based medicine databases.

Codex Alimentarius Commission
Site of body responsible for compiling the standards, codes of practice, guidelines and recommendations that constitute the Codex Alimentarius. The Codex Alimentarius, or Food Code, aims to protect public health and encourage fair practices in worldwide food trade.

CogPrints

CogPrints is an electronic archive for self-archive papers in any area of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Linguistics and many areas of Computer Science developed at the University of Southampton. In order to access some areas of the archive, you need a user registration. No charge is made for registering or using any of the services.

Commonwealth Games Council for Scotland

Competitive Advantage

Provided by Dr Goldberg giving details of Dr Goldberg's consultation services, workshops, newsletter, peak performance guides and links

Digital Library: New York Public Library

High-resolution images are available for licensing for personal use and for professional reproduction through Photographic Services and Permissions; the low-resolution web images available on the website are suitable for immediate printing or downloading to provide good-quality reference copies for a wide range of creative, research, and educational purposes.

Distinguished women in sport

Biographies of sporting women.

Ecoflora

Ecological Database of the British Isles from the University of York. Data on over 1770 species of plants

E. coli index

Ecology WWW page

Eldis

Subject gateway for development and the environment

Environmental Sites on the Internet

Ensembl Genome Browser

Joint project between EMBL - EBI and the Sanger Institute primarily funded by the Wellcome Trust. Aim is to develop a software system which produces and maintains automatic annotation on metazoan genomes.

European Bioinformatics Institute

European Federation of Sport Psychology

Flavouring agents database
Produced by FAO/WHO Committee on Food Additives - can be searched by name, JECFA number, flavour and extract manufacturer's association of the USA (FEMA) number, Council of Europe (COE) number and the Chemical Abstract Service (CAS) number.

Food additives database
Produced by the Joint FAO/WHO Committee on Food Additives this database includes food additives other than flavourings. The specifications can be searched by name, INS number, CAS number, or by other factors such as functional use.

Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network

Food-related diseases
Produced by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Food ingredients and packaging
Produced by the U.S. Center for Food Safety & Applied Nutrition.

Food and Nutrition Information Center (US) - Fitness, Sports and Sports Nutrition

US government site containing lists of useful web sites

Food-Related WWW Resources

Food Standards Agency
Includes information about labelling, additives, enforcement, safety tips, industry guidance and publications.

Fuelingtactics

Advice on using food for competitive advantage for doctors, dietitians, strength coaches and trainers

Frontiers in Bioscience: The Virtual Library

Gatorade Sports Science Institute

Gene Regulatory Sequence Analysis

A searchable database of composite regulatory elements affecting gene transcription in eukaryotes and the detection of potential composite elements.

Google Scholar

GreenNet

Health Protection Agency
Organisation for England and Wales working to protect health and reduce the impact of infectious diseases, chemical hazards and poisons. Includes information about foodborne illnesses.

Incpen

Industry Council for Packaging and the Environment - researches the environmental and social effects of packaging.

IFST: Useful links to external food-related WWW resources

Institute of Food Science and Technology
Find information on Special Interest Groups and gives position statements on current food-related topics.

Institute of Food Technologists
Information on membership, publications and meetings plus a portal to other food-related web sites.

International Food Information Service
IFIS produces the Food Science and Technology Abstracts database. Site includes a list of journal titles included in the FSTA database.

Institute of Food Technologists: Food Laws and Regulations Division

International Centre for Brewing and Distilling
Useful links compiled by the Department

International Federation of Sports Medicine

International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme

International Olympic Committee

International Society of Biomechanics

International Society of Biomechanics in Sports

Internet Directory of Botany

Internet Resources Newsletter

Keep up to date with new quality Web sites by consulting the Library's own:

Intute - Agriculture, Food & Forestry

Intute - Bioresearch

Intute - Health & Life Sciences

Intute - Medicine

Intute - Natural History

Intute - Psychology

Intute - Social Sciences

Intute - Sociology

Intute - Sport & Leisure Practice

Intute Virtual Training Suite

Subject specific tutorials in Internet information skills

Learning & Technology Support Network Image Bank

Freely available images contributed by academics, researchers, Learned Societies, industry and individuals with rights cleared for educational purposes.

Leatherhead Food Research Association
Research, information and training centre for the food and drinks industry.

Life Sciences Dictionary

Free online dictionary from the University of Texas

LifeSign - Networked Moving Images for the Life Sciences

Linkages / Earth Negotiations Bulletin (International Institute for Sustainable Development)

List of Prokaryotic names with standing in nomenclature

Man and the Biosphere Fauna Database

Microbes.info
Portal providing information on all aspects of microbiology.

Microbial World

Images and study notes on some interesting microorganisms and microbial processes from University of Edinburgh

Microbiology Network

Mind Tools - Sports Psychology

National Center for Biotechnology Information: Site Map

National Council for Science and the Environment

NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE: PubMed
PubMed is the National Library of Medicine's search service offering access to MEDLINE, PreMEDLINE and other related databases including GenBank (an annotated collection of all publicly available DNA sequences) and OMIM (Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man).

National Research Institute of Aquaculture (Japan)

National Toxicology Programme
Site includes factsheets about specific aspects of toxicology and results of the toxicity studies it undertakes for specific chemicals.

Naturenet

National Library for Health

NHS Scotland elibrary

Nicholas Institute of Sports Medicine & Athletic Trauma

North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity

Norweigan Institute of Fisheries

NYPL DigitalGallery

NYPL Digital Gallery provides access to over 275,000 images digitized from primary sources and printed rarities in the collections of The New York Public Library, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints and photographs, illustrated books, printed ephemera, and more. It is possible to browse by subject area - including science & nature images.

Olympic Women

Open Sigle

System for information on grey literature in Europe. Gives bibliographical references of reports and other grey literature including technical or research reports, doctoral dissertations, some conference papers and pre-prints, some official publications, and other types of grey literature. OpenSIGLE covers pure and applied science and technology, economics, other sciences and humanities

Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Centre

Peak Performance online

Prepared foods

President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports

Psychology Links

Psychwatch - Sports Psychology

PsychWeb

PubMed Central
Archive of journal literature for all of the life sciences developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM). A-Z journals list http://pubmedcentral.nih.gov/front-page/fp.fcgi

Science of sport

Science Research Portal

A free, publicly available web portal allowing access to numerous scientific journals and public science databases. Depending on the source, full text documents may be available. In the event full text is not available, the results pull up an abstract of the article and a link to the source, which may require payment. Check first with the library to see if the full text is available.

Scirus

Science specific search engine

Scottish Brewing Archive

Scottish Sports Association

SCRAN

Image website with access to quality images, sounds, movies and learning resources.Non-subscribers can search the whole resource base for free and see thumbnail images.

Sports and Nutrition - the winning connection

Sport! Science@The Exploratorium

Sport Psychology

Pages on Psych Web dedicated to sport psychology

Sports Coach

Sports Coach UK

Sports Council for Northern Ireland

Sports Council for Wales

Sport England

Sports Injury Clinic

Sports Nutrition - Montana State University

Sports Science

Sports Science Online

Free but registration required. Latest research in sport sciences, job vacancies, coaching and health and fitness industries

SportScotland

Scottish sports council

Stanford Genomic Resources

TASI: Technical Advisory Service for Images

Advice and training on using digital images offering online documents for creating and using images in teaching & learning; database of image collections and helpdesk.

Tireragan: a real and virtual field experiment

Data from a project to identify the effects of grazing and woodland management on the biodiversity of regenerating and mature broadleaf woodland by using large scale manipulative, experimental treatments. Access to experimental details and all results, via this web site.

Toxicology tutorials
Introductory tutorials from the National Library of Medicine

TOXNET

Databases covering toxicology, hazardous chemicals and the environment including TOXLINE.

UK Environmental Change Network

UK Sport

UK Sport’s Drug Information Database

Aimed at athletic community. Provides responses to queries on status of licensed pharmaceutical products in relation to the World Anti-Doping Code Prohibited List of substances and methods

ViperLib

Viperlib is a web-based resource library of images and presentation material illuminating the study of visual perception. All images are given freely by the vision research community

and are available for educational, non-profit use only.

Women in Sport

WomenSport International Inc

Womens Sports Foundation

Work and Organizational Psychology Arena

The arena provides professionals and researchers in this area with information on the range of books and journals published by Psychology Press, plus useful links to and information on associations and societies, upcoming conferences, and resources in the field.

WWW Virtual Library (Biosciences)

Conference papers

The results of new research are often reported first at conferences. Checking the conference literature (proceedings) is therefore a good way to pick up on new developments, often before they reach publication in journal articles.

Conference Papers Index
Accessed via: CSA Illumina

Web of Science Proceedings (Science & Technology)
Accessed via: Web of Knowledge

Some conference papers are included in databases which also include other types of publication eg journal articles, etc. Most will enable you to limit your search to conference papers or proceedings. Use the following links to connect to or get more information on databases.

List of databases in Life Sciences

For information about forthcoming conferences check the following resources:

BiologyBrowser>conferences

A free website produced by Thomson Scientific giving access to news, websites, online literature in the biological sciences also includes details of conferences in the field. Biology Browser is also available within Web of Knowledge.

Further options for searching for conference papers

See Digital Repositories

Technical reports

Many research organisations make their research reports available for general use. Some reports will be included in bibliographic databases mentioned in the databases page.

List of databases in Life Sciences

Other sources include: -

DOE Information Bridge
The Information Bridge provides an open source to full-text and bibliographic records of Department of Energy (DOE) research and development reports in physics, chemistry, materials, biology, environmental sciences, energy technologies, engineering, computer and information science, renewable energy, and other topics. The Information Bridge consists of full-text documents produced and made available by the Department of Energy National Laboratories and grantees from 1995 forward.

NASA CASI Technical Reports Server

NTIS (US National Technical Information Service)

A searchable database of technical reports from U.S. government sponsored research issued since 1990.

CCLRC ePublication Archive
Contains details of some UK Reports, from the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils.

Open Sigle

OSTI (Office of Scientific and Technical Information)

US Department of Energy website

Science Accelerator

Search information resources of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) scientific and technical information.

Science.gov

Search engine for US government science information and research results including U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) scientific and technical information

British National Bibliography for Report Literature (1998-2003)

Section 08 covers the biological and medical sciences

Abstracts Section (Level 4)

Patents

Finding Patents

Patent information

Obtaining patents

Finding patents

Various services can be used for finding patents, including:

Patent Lens

Patent Lens is an independent, public-good global resource for increasing patent transparency. It lets you search the full-text of more than 8 million patent documents from US, Europe, Australia and WIPO, including their status and counterparts in up to 60 countries. Also includes information about patents and intellectual property. This site also gives useful information on how to read a patent and top ten things you should know about patents.

FreePatentsOnline

Searchable database of patents from US, Europe, Japan (abstracts only) and WIPO. Includes a very detailed guide on how and why you might want to do a patent search.

Esp@cenet

The GB portal for Europe's network of patents databases offering searching of GB, Worldwide or specific European countries patent databases. Select the one you wish to search from the drop down list. The GB gateway gives access to all GB applications (from 1979) and patents (from 2002) while the Worldwide database has the widest coverage with publications from 63 countries and contains GB publications from 1900 onwards.

Free Patent Fetcher

Free site offering PDFs of patents from US Government and other sites. Only searchable using application or patent number.

Patents Oncloud8

Scirus search engine

Searches over 13 million patents, including those from the US Patent and Trademark Office, European Patent Office, Japanese Patent Office and the Patent Cooperation Treaty of the World Intellectual Property Organisation

STO's Internet Patent Search System

Use this site to learn about retrieving patent titles by using either the class/subclass code or by using the patent number. This site also provides information on how to do patent searching by using the PTO classification system

SurfIP.gov.sg

(via the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore) offers simultaneous searching of a range of patents files.

US Patents & Trade Marks - search facility

WIPO search

Searches international patents

Delphion

(formerly IBM Patent Server) This site allows you to search for American , European and Japanese patent information. A subscription is required to access worldwide patent data, full-text searching or analytical and productivity tools. However, free registration will allow: -

- Quick searching against the US granted bibliographic collection

- Patent number searching against worldwide collections

- Free Work Files that let you save, manage and organize your patent research

- PDF Express for downloading in bulk, plus single PDF or TIFF downloads on a pay-per-use basis

Chemical Abstracts
Chemical Abstracts contains a patent index which lists all patent documents processed by the Chemical Abstracts Service.

Level 4 (ABS)CHEMICAL ABSTRACTS 1907 - 2001 (print version)

Patent information

Bustpatents

Focuses on patent information - economics, legal analysis, statistics, court rulings, patent analysis tools and more

European Classification System (ECLA)

Browse for and search with classification codes integral to the esp@acenet patents databases

European Patent Office

EPO allows patents to be applied for and granted simultaneously in different European countries. Provides an interactive tour of patents, what information they contain and how to use them.

Getting the most out of Patent information on the Internet

Hypertext article in Ariadne June 1999. Nicola Harrison reviews the best patent information sites on the Internet

Heriot Watt University Library Patent Information

International Patents Classification (IPC)

The IPC is a hierarchical system of codes for the classification of patents according to the different areas of technology to which they pertain. All European patent documents show the relevant IPC symbols on their front page. These classifications can be used to search for a specific technical area.

Oppedahl & Larson Patent Law Web Server

General information about patents

Patent Cafe's IPFrontline

Magazine of intellectual property & technology

Patent and Design Journal (free on-line access)

Patent Status Information Service

UK Intellectual Property Office - patents

This office exams all patent applications in the UK, and advises on all aspects of the UK patenting system, as well as design registration and trade marks. Comprehensive information on patents and finding patents.

US Patent and Trademark Office

Information about US patents and patent law.

US Patent Classification System (USPC)

Every patent is assigned class and subclass numbers under this classification system, based on what is being patented. Searching using classification codes allows for more targeted searching. Index to classification system

World Intellectual Property Organization

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is an intergovernmental organization with headquarters in Geneva. WIPO is responsible for the promotion of the protection of intellectual property throughout the world through cooperation among States, and for dealing with the legal and administrative aspects of intellectual property.

WIPO directory of intellectual property offices

Some abstracting services available on the campus (such as Petroleum Abstracts), and journals (such as the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America) list and give abstracts of patents

Some good guides to patents are:

British Library. The inventor's guide: how to protect and profit from your idea.(1997)

608 BRI

Dulken. Introduction to patent information.(1992)

608 DUL

Rimmer. International guide to official industrial property publications.(1992)

Quick Reference: 608 RIM

Obtaining patents

The nearest collection of patents is in Glasgow, at the Mitchell Library (Glasgow Public Libraries) as part of the Business Information Department.

British Library Patent Trademarks & Designs

The Inter-Library Loan service can obtain copies of most patents

More information on the library's patent information page.

Official publications and government websites

Official publications are produced by governments, government departments, and such bodies as the E.C. For a detailed description of the treatment of official publications see our guide: HOW TO FIND OUT - GOVERNMENT PUBLICATIONS.

For lists of many British Official Publications, see:

BOPCRIS - British Official Publications Collaborative Reader Information Service
A bibliographic database containing references to key British Official Publications between 1688 and 1995. The material is based on a number of major research collections in UK universities, including amongst others, the Ford collection at the University of Southampton Library, Edinburgh University Library, and Glasgow University Library (a complete list of participating libraries can be found on the web site). You can search and browse for relevant documents and read abstracts of key documents. The digitised full-text version of a limited number of documents is available online or you can find out the nearest location of relevant material.

Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI)

Provides online access to UK legislation, licenses the re-use of Crown copyright material, manages the Information Fair Trader Scheme, and maintains the Government’s Information Asset Register. Also includes a webpage on official guidance on the use of Crown copyright protected materials.

The Stationery Offic (TSO)

The Stationery Office is the official publisher of statutory, parliamentary and government information and has been the official publisher to Parliament for over 200 years. TSO Online bookshop www.tsoshop.co.uk is the business and professional bookshop from The Stationery Office. Created specifically for the UK business and professional market it offers a comprehensive range of books, as well as quick and simple access to over one million UK publications

Directgov

Government site giving the latest and widest range of public service information

UK Parliament's WWW Service

OECD publications

A-Z of Central Government

Central Science Laboratory

CSL is a public sector science organisation providing research and information services to governments and industry. Its focus is on protecting environmental quality, developing sustainable land uses and safeguarding food chain safety. CSL is an Executive Agency of Defra and works closely with Defra's other science agencies CEFAS and VLA

Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)

Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC)

The Department brings together much of the Climate Change Group, previously housed within the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), with the Energy Group from the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR).

Department of Health

Environment Agency

Food Standards Agency

The Food Standards Agency is an independent Government department set up to protect the public's health and consumer interests in relation to food.

Statistics

Statistics can be difficult to trace. Use one of the guidebooks mentioned earlier to find out what has been published. See the library's guide: How to Find Out - Statistics for details of statistics held in the Library.

Scotland

Statistical Accounts of Scotland

Scottish Executive

General Register Office for Scotland

Includes census, demographic and medical statistics for Scotland.

Census.ac.uk

Access to census data from 1971 onwards from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Census Programme. Registration also gives access to data from UK Data Archive, Economic and Social Data Service, Collection of Historical and Contemporary Census Data and Arts and Humanities Data Service.

Census Dissemination Unit (CDU)

Census Geographical Data Unit (UKBORDERS)

UK Statistics Authority

Extremely comprehensive in its coverage of government statistics, also gives access to several statistical databanks

Guide to Official Statistics

Published by HMSO, this is a comprehensive guide to statistics gathered by government departments and other organisations. Contains a detailed subject index. Print version at Quick Reference : 051 CEN

Directgov

Government site giving the latest and widest range of public service information

Guide to Official Statistics

Published by HMSO, this is a comprehensive guide to statistics gathered by government departments and other organisations. Contains a detailed subject index.

Quick Reference : 051 CEN or Connect

Mort. Sources of unofficial United Kingdom Statistics

Quick Reference : 051 MOR

International

OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development)

Produces a wide range of statistics for OECD countries

EUROSTAT

Statistics WWW Virtual Library

The World Bank

Especially good for data on developing countries. Data can be found by topic or by country. Site also has analysis.

Standards

ANSI Online

The ANSI (American National Standards Institute) online information service.

British Standards Online
Includes the full text of current, historic, and draft British Standards and more than 16,000 BSI adopted European and international standards. Also included are technical handbooks, codes of practice, guidelines specifications for products, dimensions, and performance glossaries.

ILI

The ILI web site features a free searchable web catalogue of Standards linked to an Internet Ordering facility. This catalogue, which is searchable by Standard number, or by title, lists Standards from a large number of issuing bodies including: ANSI, API, ASHRAE, ASTM, BS, CECC, EIA, DIN, IEEE, ISO, SAE

ISO Online (International Organization for Standardization)
This service includes the catalogue of all ISO International Standards including drafts, complete lists of ISO members and technical committees and general background on ISO

Theses and dissertations

Theses and dissertations are a valuable source of new research information.

Index to Theses

Covers Great Britain and Ireland from 1716. All theseshave links which tell you how to obtain the full text of the thesis. Where available a direct link to the full text is given.

ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Abstracts

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses is the world's most comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses, with more than 2.3 million doctoral dissertations and master’s theses included, covering graduate research from 1861 to the present. North American and international coverage.

Ethos

The Electronic Theses Online Service (Ethos) from the British Library contains 250,000+ records and is updated weekly. It allows download of an increasing number of electronic and digitised theses direct to the desktop. The final versions of doctoral theses from UK Higher Education Institutions are eligible for inclusion. Full-text of theses from participating institutions are being added over time. Ethos may also include records for theses from a non-participating institution (and occasionally a thesis from a non-participating institution may be included).

Canadian Theses

Search bibliographic records for all theses in the National Library of Canada theses collection (established 1965). Provides free access to the full text electronic versions of Canadian theses and dissertations published from the beginning of 1998 to August 31, 2002.

Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD)

An international organization dedicated to promoting the adoption, creation, use, dissemination and preservation of electronic analogues to the traditional paper-based theses and dissertations.

WorldWideScience.org

Prototype for a global science gateway connecting you to national and international scientific databases

Scirus

Search engine for scientific information which can be limited to only search for theses and dissertations.

Further options for searching for theses

See Digital Repositories

Digital repositories

Digital Repositories are collections of electronic documents. They may also be called e-print repositories, archives or institutional repositories. The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) defines them as digital collections that capture and preserve the intellectual output of a single or multi-university community. Repositories may also be subject based; set up by an individual to archive his or her scholarly output; and may belong to organisations other than universities.

Digital repositories facilitate open access to scholarly publications by allowing authors to deposit copies of output in a publicly accessible resource (often in conjunction with publishing in peer reviewed journals or other published sources). Journal articles found in digital repositories may be pre-prints - a term used to refer to an article at any stage prior to publication - from peer-reviewed and awaiting publication to documents not yet submitted to a journal for consideration. As well as journal articles, digital repositories may also include theses, conference papers, working papers and learning & teaching materials.

See our blog entries on institutional repositories and The Depot for more information.

Links to repositories, lists of repositories and cross-searching services

ARC - A Cross Archive Search Service

Arc is an experimental research service of Digital Library Research group at Old Dominion University. Arc investigates harvesting repositories and making them accessible through a unified search interface. It is not a production service and may be subject to unscheduled service interruptions and anomalies.

arXiv

arXiv is an e-print service in the fields of physics, mathematics, non-linear science, computer science, and quantitative biology. The contents of arXiv conform to Cornell University academic standards. arXiv is owned, operated and funded by Cornell University, a private not-for-profit educational institution. arXiv is also partially funded by the National Science Foundation

CogPrints

E-prints UK Service

The E-prints UK service allows cross searching of around 30 institutional repositories. The search facility is still in development but the demo version can be used at present. E-prints UK is a Resource Discovery Network (RDN) project.

History & Theory of Psychology Eprint Archive

Resource from York University, Canada.

eScholarship repository

A repository of the California Digital Library. Research and scholarly output included here has been selected and deposited by the individual University of California units.

Directory of Open Access Repositories

OpenDOAR is an authoritative directory of academic open access repositories. Each OpenDOAR repository has been visited by project staff to check the information that is recorded here. This in-depth approach does not rely on automated analysis and gives a quality-controlled list of repositories. Repository content can be searched.

Google Scholar

Part of Google Scholar's search will cover pre-print repositories. Google Scholar enables you to search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research. Use Google Scholar to find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web.

MIT digital repository

Repository of Massachusetts Institute of Technology research in digital form, including preprints, technical reports, working papers, conference papers, images, and more.

OAISter

Project of the University of Michigan Digital Library Production Service to create a collection of freely available, previously difficult-to-access, academically-oriented digital resources that are easily searchable by anyone. When you search in OAIster, you're searching a wide variety of collections from a wide variety of institutions (around 405). These institutions have made the records of their digital resources available to OAIster which are aggregated into the OAIster service. List of participating institutions.

Pre-print resources on the Web

A list of pre-print search services across subjects compiled by Iowa State University.

ROAR (Registry of Open Access Repositories)

Promotes open access to the research literature pre- and post-peer-review through author self-archiving in institutional eprint archives. ROAR monitors growth in the number of eprint archives and maintains a list of EPrints sites. Allows searching for and within repositories.

SHERPA

SHERPA (Securing a Hybrid Environment for Research Preservation and Access) is developing open-access institutional repositories in a number of UK research universities and is now a partner in the DOAR project to create a Directory of Open Access Repositories. The current SHERPA search site offers links to individual university e-print archives, lists of open access archives and cross searching services.

SHERPA- Romeo

Information on publishers' copyright & self-archiving policies. Use this site to find a summary of permissions that are normally given as part of each publisher's copyright transfer agreement

SPARC list of institutional repositories

List organized by country, includes repositories that are institutional in scope and that contain multiple document types. It excludes discipline-specific e-print servers and university repositories that contain only theses and dissertations.

TechXtra
TechXtra searches across some digital repositories.