Barnard College Library Research Guide
BC3595 Research Seminar in Biology
Professor Hilary Callahan
Librarian: Lois Coleman
Spring 2005

Biological Abstracts

• an Ovid database with citations and abstracts for articles in biology, plant and animal science, ecology, paleontology, pharmacology, biochemistry, biophysics and bioengineering, published from 1969 to the present
• multiple words together are taken as a phrase
• for truncation, use * (saturat* will find saturate, saturated, saturation, saturations)
• for an author or title search, click on the icons at the top
• to combine previous searches, click on the "Combine" icon at the top

BioMed Central

• current full-text articles from journals in the biological and biomedical sciences
• click on Advanced search, then select Citation+Abstract from drop-down list

BioOne

• full-text journal articles focused on the biological, ecological and environmental sciences
• click on Search at the top, and enter terms in the Abstract field

JSTOR

• more than 600 scholarly journals from various publishers, from their first issue up to a few years ago
• useful for historical research; contains ecology and botany journals dating back to the early twentieth century that are not indexed in other databases
• no issues from the last 3 to 6 years, depending on the journal
• multiple words together are taken as a phrase
• no truncation symbol - use OR (saturated or saturation)
• a particular journal or set of journals must be designated in your search - choose the botany, ecology and general science journals

• an Ovid database with citations and abstracts for articles in biomedicine, including the allied health fields and the biological and physical sciences, published from 1966 to the present
• search functions are the same as for Biological Abstracts
• you can switch between Ovid databases and repeat your searches using the "Change Database" icon at the top

Science Citation Index

• a Thomson-ISI Web of Science database that lists all the citations used in every article in the database; useful for determining if any articles have cited a specific article or book, for tracing the development of an idea, or to examine the references of an article you cannot obtain
• limit document type to "Review" to obtain articles that provide an overview of a topic
• "Times Cited" is a rough measure of how influential the paper is in the field

LIBRARY LOCATIONS AT COLUMBIA

• Biology Library (601 Fairchild) homepage / directions
• Health Sciences Library (701 West 168th Street) homepage / directions
• Mathematics/Science Library (303 Mathematics) homepage / directions (in CLIO the location code for this library is SCIENCE)
• Geology Library (601 Schermerhorn) homepage / directions
• Geoscience Library (Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Palisades, NY 10964) homepage / directions
• U.S. Government Documents (Lehman Social Sciences Library, 300 International Affairs) homepage / directions

Borrow Direct

• for books only - a consortium of the university libraries of Columbia, Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Penn, Princeton and Yale
• a link to a request form is available on the Request It page on Library Web; you need your Columbia ID and password to access it
• takes about 4 days
  

Inter-Library Loan

• for books, dissertations or articles
• also on the Request It page on Library Web; you need your Columbia ID and password to access it
• you can also go in person to the ILL Office at 505 Butler Library; the phone number is 212-854-3542 and the email address is ill@libraries.cul.columbia.edu
• use ILL for requesting books or non-science journal articles
• takes about 2 weeks
  

Science Libraries' Fast Track Delivery Service

• also available on the Request It page
• you can request articles from journals that Columbia does not own in the areas of science, technology, engineering and medicine
• articles from journals at the Health Sciences Library can be ordered
• you can submit the on-line request form or fill out a printed request form at a Columbia branch science library
• when the article arrives, the relevant Columbia branch library will notify you by telephone or e-mail so that you can pick it up
  

• The American Museum of Natural History homepage
• Columbia's Biology Library provides a list of Biology Internet Resources
• The National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) is maintained by the Center for Biological Informatics of the U.S. Geological Survey
• PrimateLit provides bibliographic access to the scientific literature on nonhuman primates
• PubMed is the National Library of Medicine database of citations and abstracts for articles in MEDLINE, additional life science journals, and the integrated molecular biology databases included in the National Center for Biotechnology Information retrieval system (including DNA and protein sequences, 3-D protein structure data, and assemblies of complete genomes) and has links to articles which usually require payment for full text; however, Columbia subscribes to most of these journals, so use Columbia databases instead to obtain full text
• The Tree of Life is a project containing information about the diversity of organisms on Earth, their history and characteristics; the information is linked together in the form of an evolutionary tree
• The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service homepage includes links to reports, news releases, and an Online Library
• Yale University Library - Biology Resources lists databases, search tools, organizations, and interesting reference sources