Science Research Guide

Finding Books  |  Major Reference Works  |  Major Databases  |  Web Resources

For help with your research, visit the reference desk (hours) on the second floor of Barnard Library, or contact a Barnard reference librarian:
       Phone: 212-854-3953
       Chat: IM BarnardReference
       E-mail: refdesk@barnard.edu
Request a one-on-one consultation with a Barnard librarian if you have an in-depth research need.

Finding Books

Use CLIO to find books (including reference books), journals, links to online journals, and other materials, in the Columbia or Barnard libraries.
CLIO does not index journals.  Use an online index or database to locate articles on a particular topic.

Major Reference Works
Available in Barnard Library Reference Area and/or online

Use for:
an overview of a topic background information bibliographies
Title	Call Number
CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics (also online)	Q D65 .H192 2004-05
Dictionary of Science	Q 123 .D52 1994g
Dictionary of Scientific Biography, v. 1-18	Q 141 .D5
Encyclopedia of Biodiversity, v. 1-5	QH 541.5 .B56 E6 2001g
Encyclopedia of Evolution	QH360.2 E54 2002
Encyclopedia of Genetics	QH427 E54 2001g
Gray's Anatomy	QM 23.2 .G73 1980b
McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, v. 1-20 (also online)	Q121 M3 2002
Macmillan Encyclopedia of Physics, v. 1-4	QC5 .M15 1996
Merck Manual of Medical Information (also online)	RC81. M535 2003
Science And Its Times, v. 1-8	Q175.46 .S35 2000

Databases
For finding articles and other information.
If accessed from off-campus, subscription databases require Columbia ID and password. 
All are on the Databases list on the Barnard Library or Columbia Libraries Homepage.

 General

Annual Reviews: reviews of topics in the biomedical, physical and social sciences published as annual journals

History of Science, Technology, and Medicine: citations for articles, conference proceedings, books and book reviews in the history of science and technology

NTIS: citations and abstracts for technical reports of government sponsored research

ProQuest: journal articles and citations, as well as the full text of the New York Times from 1851 to the present

Science Citation Index: or Web of Science: abstracts and cited references for articles in science, technology and medical journals

ScienceDirect: over 2,500 journals and full-text books in the fields of science, technology and medicine.

SciFinder Scholar: reactions, citations and some full-text for articles in chemistry periodicals and other publications.

 Natural Sciences

AGRICOLA: citations for materials related to agriculture

Animal Behavior Abstracts: citations and abstracts for journal articles on animal behavior

Beilstein Database: citations, data, structure, reactions and chemical and physical property information of organic compounds

Bibliography on Cold Regions Science and Technology: information service of the American Geological Institute with links to current literature from the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory

Biological Abstracts: citations and abstracts from life sciences literature

Biological and Agricultural Index: citations for articles in biology and agriculture periodicals

BioMed Central: current full-text articles in biological and biomedical sciences

BioOne: full-text journal articles focused on the biological, ecological and environmental sciences

CATALPA: the online catalog for the New York Botanical Garden LuEsther T. Mertz Library

Columbia Earthscape: an online resource on the global environment. Earth science education and research links and resources, and Earth Affairs Magazine

FAOSTAT: international statistics in agriculture, food, fisheries, and forestry

GeoRef: citations and abstracts for publications related to geology

LexisNexis Environmental: collection of five separately searchable environment related databases

MEDLINE: Index of the biomedical literature

The Merck Index: online version of the 13th edition of the Merck Index, an encyclopedia of chemicals, drugs and biologicals

Nature Encyclopedia of Life Sciences: introductory articles on life sciences topics

Oceanic Abstracts: citations and abstracts for materials related to marine literature

PubMed: provides access to over 12 million Medline citations back to the mid-1960's and additional life science journals

Visible Earth: a searchable directory of images, visualizations, and animations of the Earth

Zoological Record: citations to zoological literature

Physical Sciences

CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics: physical and chemical data

Current Index to Statistics: citations for articles in all areas of statistics

Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Astrophysics Online: full-text encyclopedia articles with links to external resources

IEEE Xplore: full-text IEEE and IEE conference proceedings, transactions, journals, and magazines; IEEE standards.

INSPEC: Index to citations of journal articles and contributions to conference proceedings in physics, astronomy, electrical & electronics engineering, computing

MathSciNet: citations, abstracts, and review texts of research literature in mathematics

Project Euclid: citations and abstracts for articles in mathematics and statistics journals

Science of Synthesis: Houbel-Weyl methods of molecular transformations

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 Updated 4/21/2008
Lois M. Coleman, Heidi Martin Winston, Reference Librarians