Library Guides: Biological Sciences: guide for graduate students and faculty: Finding...

Subject Librarian

Subject librarian

Janice Dysart
Research & Instructional Services Librarian
169 Ellis Library
573-882-1828

Articles

Scopus
Database with abstracts and citations of research literature and quality web sources, including journals, conference proceedings, trade publications, abstracts, and patent records. A multidisciplinary resource covering materials from the humanities, sciences and social sciences. Also indexes EMBASE and allows you to locate the most highly cited items and the articles that cite them.
Date Coverage: 1970-present; selected access back to 1823

Maximum Users: Unlimited

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Search Guide: http://help.scopus.com

Tutorial: http://help.scopus.com/robo/projects/schelp/tutorials/sc_menu.htmlInteractive Tutorials

Auto Alerts: http://library.missouri.edu/search/databases/alertslist.htm#scopus
PubMed
The National Library of Medicine's free article search engine, containing article references from MEDLINE, PreMEDLINE, OLDMEDLINE, plus publisher-supplied and out-of-scope citations from science and chemistry journals.

Instructions for adding FindIt@MU links and "Available at MU" filter to Pubmed
To run a cited reference search on an article found in PubMed, copy and paste the PMID article Identifier here.

Web of Science Core Collection
Indexes thousands of scholarly journals, books, reports, conferences and more. Citation information and analysis with cited reference searching available. The collection includes Science Citation Index Expanded (1990-present), Social Sciences Citation Index Expanded (1990-present), Arts & Humanities Citation Index (1990-present), Conference Proceedings Citation Index (1990-present), Book Citation Index (2005-present), Current Chemical Reactions (1985-present) and Index Chemicus (1993-present).
Date Coverage: Varies by collection
Maximum Users: Unlimited
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Google Scholar
Provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites.
Please see Google Scholar & Findit@MU for instructions on adding Findit@MU links to your Google Scholar page.
Date Coverage: NA
Maximum Users: Unlimited
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BIOSIS Citation Index
Contains journals, reports, books, meetings, and U.S. patents in all disciplines of the life sciences, including traditional areas of biology, such as botany, zoology, and microbiology, as well as related fields such as plant and animal science, agriculture, pharmacology, and ecology.
Date Coverage: 1969-2014
Maximum Users: Unlimited
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Ecology & zoology databases

Environment Complete
Covers agriculture, ecosystem ecology, energy, natural resources, marine & freshwater science, geography, environmental technology & law, urban planning and more.
Free account can be created for personalization.
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Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/c/EBSCOSupportTutorials
Fish, Fisheries and Aquatic Biodiversity Worldwide
Provides citations and some abstracts on all aspects of ichthyology, fisheries, and related aspects of aquaculture.
Free account can be created for personalization.
Date Coverage: 1971-date
Maximum Users: 1
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License Terms: http://mulibraries.missouri.edu/search/databases/nisclicense.htm

SORA--Searchable Ornithological Research Archive
SORA,an open access electronic journal archive, is the product of a collaboration between the American Ornithologists Union, the Cooper Ornithological Society, the Association of Field Ornithologists, the Wilson Ornithological Society and the University of New Mexico libraries and IT department. This archive provides access to an extensive Ornithological literature of international scope, and detailed material documenting the history of Ornithology in North America over the last 120 years.

Wildlife and Ecology Studies Worldwide
Indexes literature on wild mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. All aspects of wildlife and wildlife management are covered.
Date Coverage: 1935-date

Maximum Users: 5

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License Terms: http://mulibraries.missouri.edu/search/databases/nisclicense.htm
Zoological Record
Provides access to worldwide zoological literature, including all major areas of the field: behavior, ecology, evolution, habitat, nutrition, parasitology, reproduction, taxonomy, and zoogeography.
Date Coverage: 1985-present

Maximum Users: Unlimited

Auto Update: http://libraryguides.missouri.edu/c.php?g=27933&p=175486

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Books

O'Reilly
Provides full-text access to thousands of online books covering technology, digital media, business, health, travel, personal and professional development and many other areas. Also includes learning tutorials and videos.
Date Coverage Varies

Maximum Users Unlimited

Help: https://www.safaribooksonline.com/public/support/

Ebooks@MU

Search Book Content

Google Books
Google Books contains the full text of books and magazines provided by libraries and publishers. Materials that are out of copyright (generally pre-1925) can be viewed online. For more recent books, Google Book Search functions as a detailed index. Books identified may be available at MU, via MOBIUS, or may be requested through ILL@MU. [more]
HathiTrust
The Hathi Trust Digital Library contains digital copies of more than 10 million volumes in over 400 languages, printed from 1500-present. Over 3 million volumes are in the public domain and can be viewed/printed/downloaded. Other volumes can be searched, but viewing is restricted. The Digital Library combines full-text searching with the traditional library catalog to facilitate sophisticated queries and easy browsing. MU users can also build private or shared collections within the Digital Library. [more]

Dissertations

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global
Comprehensive curated collection of multi-disciplinary dissertations and theses from around the world, offering over 5 million citations and 3 million full-text works from thousands of universities. Access provided by the University of Missouri Graduate School.

Libraries Guide to Dissertations and Theses

Journal Impact Factor (JIF)

Journal impact factor (JIF)

Definition: A measure of the frequency with which the "average article" in a journal has been cited in a particular year or period. Clarivate Analytics

Calculation for a journal's 2017 journal impact factor:

Available from:

Journal Citation Reports
Source of impact factors and rankings for over 11,500 journals in the sciences and social sciences.
Free account can be created for personalization.
Date Coverage: 1997- date
Maximum Users: Unlimited
Tutorials: http://jcr.help.clarivate.com.proxy.mul.missouri.edu/Content/training-videos.htm
User Guide http://clarivate.libguides.com/home

Caveat: Only journals in the sciences and social sciences that meet Clarivate Analytics' standards for inclusion in the Web of Science Core Collection are assigned impact factors. Impact factors are not computed for journals in the humanities.

Ongoing Debate: Currently impact factors are the most widely known way to rank journals, however, they are controversial. Some people believe that impact factors do not accurately reflect the impact of a journal or article.
(Hate journal impact factors? New study gives you one more reason, Science July 6, 2016)

Journal acceptance rates

Finding journal acceptance rates

eResources for finding methods and protocols

e-resources for finding methods & protocols

Springer Nature Experiments
Simultaneously searches Nature Protocols, Nature Methods, Springer Protocols and the Protocol Exchange
Biological Procedures Online
Biology Methods and Protocols (Oxford)
Cold Spring Harbor Protocols
Current Protocols in Plant Biology
Methods and Protocols
Methods in Enzymology
Nature Methods
Nature Protocols
Organic Synthesis: A Publication of Reliable Methods for the Preparation of Organic Compounds

Springer Nature Experiments
Database of reproducible laboratory protocols in the biomedical and life sciences. Offers researchers access to tested, trusted, step-by-step protocols for immediate use in the lab.
Date Coverage: 1980-2014
Maximum Users: Unlimited

Open protocol repositories

Protocol Exchange
Nature's open repository for protocols.
Bio-protocols
Life sciences protocols
protocols.io
Open access repository of science methods.
Can search and view protocols without setting up a free account.

Additional Resources

Additional resources

BioNumbers
Collection of common biological numbers that is useful to one’s research.
NCBI Databases Site Map
A starting point for searching gene sequences and molecular biology information found in GenBank/Entrez, RefSeq, OMIM, LocusLink, and more. Use the Entrez Cross-database Search Page to do a global search across all Entrez resources.
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Search Guide: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Class/MLACourse/
Brenda: the comprehensive enzyme system
Searchable database of enzyme information including nomenclature, enzyme-ligand interactions, functional parameters, organism related information, enzyme structure, molecular properties and bibliographies. Available free of charge for academic, non-profit users.
MetaCyc
Curated database of experimentally elucidated metabolic pathways from all domains of life. MetaCyc contains 2453 pathways from 2788 different organisms.
EcoCyc
Curated database for the bacterium Escherichia coli K-12 MG1655. Includes transcriptional regulation, transporters and metabolic pathways.

Animals

Animal species: guide to finding information

Birds of the World
A comprehensive reference covering the life histories of birds from around the world. Includes family and species accounts, illustrations, and audio/video recordings.
Date Coverage: NA

Maximum Users: Unlimited

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Plants

Biota of North America
Searchable by state, county and zipcode. Provides local plant distributions and images of plants. Allows users to create plant lists of North American Plants, an online plant set for a location, an online plant list for attribute keying, and research distributions, attributes, and images. Works best in Firefox browser.
Flora of Missouri
Missouri Plants
Photographs and descriptions of the flowering and non-flowering plants in Missouri.
Distribution maps of plant diseases
The authoritative source for accurate data on the worldwide distribution of plant diseases of economic or quarantine importance. Access to these maps is also available through the database CABDirect.