Example: Most Frequently Used Databases for Physics & Astronomy
- Web of Science (1900 - ) This link opens in a new windowIf you receive an error message and cannot access the database, try clearing your browser cache and cookies. Science, social science, arts, and humanities citations for scholarly literature. Access the world’s leading scholarly literature in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities and examine proceedings of international conferences, symposia, seminars, colloquia, workshops, and conventions. The Libraries subscribe to Science Citation Index Expanded (1900-present), Social Sciences Citation Index (1970-present), and Arts & Humanities Citation Index (1975-present).
- Scopus This link opens in a new windowThe world’s largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature. Contains over 46 million records, 70% with abstracts, and also includes over 4.6 million conference papers. NOTE: Click "Institutions" icon in right corner. Change organization to Washington University in St Louis John M Olin Library, Danforth Campus.
- SciFinder-n (1907 - ) This link opens in a new windowSciFinder-n is the most comprehensive database for coverage of chemistry & chemical engineering. Sources include 10,000 journals, patents from 61 patent authorities, book chapters, conference proceedings, dissertations, evaluated reference works, technical reports, as well as book reviews and biographical information. Learn more about this database. NOTE: requires user registration. Follow this link to register using your “@wustl.edu” email address - Registration for SciFinder. Learn about using this database off campus
- Google Scholar This link opens in a new windowUse 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. While Google Scholar itself is free on the web, many of the citations it references are not. Accessing Google Scholar via the proxied link will enable Get It! and Web of Science Links from within Google Scholar citations. Learn more about proxying Google Scholar Having trouble accessing Google Scholar from off-campus? Use this research guide to access Google Scholar.
Many articles are available as preprints or eprints before actual publication. Here are ways to find the "gray literature."
- arXiv This link opens in a new windowarXiv is an e-print service in the fields of physics, mathematics, non-linear science, computer science, and quantitative biology.
- Astrophysics Data SystemThe SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) is a Digital Library portal for researchers in Astronomy and Physics, operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) under a NASA grant. The ADS maintains three bibliographic databases containing more than 6.7 million records.
- INSPIRE - HEPHigh-Energy Physics Literature Database