Ellis Library Sourcepack for Undergraduate Researchers

Librarian: Brenda Graves-Blevins

Finding journal articles

From the MU Libraries Gateway page, click on Find a Database . Databases are electronic indexes that usually provide you with citations to journal and magazine articles, but they also may include citations to book chapters, dissertations and other documents. These databases allow you to search by keyword, author, subject, etc. and to retrieve citations, abstracts and often, even fulltext articles.

From the Databases page, if you click on the broad subject division of Science & Technology, Health & Medicine, Social Sciences, or some other division of choice, you will find still another list, grouping database listings into more narrow subject areas as biology, chemistry, medicine, psychology, etc.

The following is a selected listing of databases that may be particularly useful to undergraduate researchers. From here, you can click directly on the name and go directly to that database. You may want to look for Help, Tips, etc. once you enter a database to help you structure a search, because databases will have significant differences in searching that you will need to be aware of for your search to work or at least, for it to search effectively.

• Academic Search Premier is a general database that provides some fulltext access to over 4,600 scholarly publications in all disciplines, including more that 3,500 that are peer-reviewed. In addition to the fulltext journals, this database offers indexing and abstracts for all 8, 052 publications in the database. Coverage is 1984 to date, updating is constant and many articles are fulltext.
  
• Agricola is produced by the U.S. National Agricultural Library and provides access to worldwide periodical literature and USDA publications. Subject coverage includes platn and animal sciences, food and nutrition, agriculture, biotechnology, entomology, forestry and wildlife. Coverage is 1970 to date, updating is monthly and there is no fulltext.
  
• Biological Abstracts encompasses all disciplines of the life sciences. Coverage includes 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. Interdisciplinary fields such as biochemistry, biophysics, and biotechnology are also included. Over 6,500 journals worldwide are monitored for inclusion in the database. Coverage is 1980 to date, updating is quarterly and there are some links to fulltext articles.
  
• CABDirect is produced by CAB International and provides worldwide coverage of agriculture in a very broad sense. Coverage includes plant and animal sciences, forestry, human health and nutrition, veterinary medicine, agricultural biotechnology, ecnomics and engineering. Coverage is 1900 to date, updating is quarterly and there are some links to fulltext.
  
• Current Contents provides access to the tables of contents and bibliographic data from current issues of leading scholarly research journals in the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities. Cover-to-cover indexing of journal articles, reviews, meeting abstracts, editorials, etc. is provided for over 7,000 journals. Coverage is 1993 to date, and updating is weekly.
  
• Medline covers international literature on biomedicine, including the allied health fields and the biological and physical sciences, humanities, and information science as they relate to medicine and health care. Information is indexed from approximately 3,600 journals published worldwide.
  
• PsycINFO contains references to articles in more than 1,300 periodicals as well as technical reports, dissertations, and other materials. References to relevant book chapters and books published from 1987 to date are also included. The database covers literature in psychology and related behavioral and social sciences.
  
• PubMed is the National Library of Medicine free article search engine, containing article references from MEDLINE, PreMEDLINE, OLDMEDLINE, plus some publisher-supplied and out of scope citations from certain general science and chemistry journals, such as Science and Nature.
  
• SciFinder Scholar contains a comprehensive database of the chemical literature and patents, the CAS Registry with information on over 18 million substances, and is highly useful for biotechnology, biology, chemical engineering, toxicology, environmental science, medicine and food science. Coverage is 1907 to date, updating is daily, and there are some links to fulltext.
  Important Note: SciFinder is not available directly from the list of Databases, but rather the software needed to search it, must be loaded on individual computers. All the computers in Ellis Library have the SciFinder icon on the desktop that you can click on and access the database. If you have trouble finding SciFinder, ask at the Reference Desk. If you want to load the software onto a lab or personal computer and are on campus, go first to the MU Libraries Gateway. Click on Databases from the top menu. Click on "S" from the top menu and choose SciFinder Scholar. You'll find directions for loading the software for both PCs and Macs. If you are off-campus, you will need todownload the VPN software, available from the Division of Information Technology website before you can load the SciFinder SciFinder Scholar software.
  
• Web of Science encompasses the Arts and Humanities Citation Index, the Science Citation Index, and the Social Science Citation Index. It covers the most prestigious, heavily cited journals, those with the highest impact factors, in all fields. Coverage is 1990 to date, updating is weekly and there are some links to fulltext.
  
  How to get an actual copy of an article you need
  
  If you are searching a topic in one of the above databases and find a citation to an article of interest, to get the actual article...
  
  (1) Click on the FindIt@MU button, located somewhere on the page, and you'll often be able to go right to an electronic copy of the article immediately. If an e-copy is not available, then...
  
  (2) Look for the link that enables you to connect to the MERLIN Catalog to determine where you would physically need to go to find a print copy of the journal article. If a print copy is not available, then you still have the following option.
  
  (3) Although libraries don't own access to the universe of all journals, either electronic or print, and they may only own access for a limited time period for some journals, you still can get articles from those journals. Return to the MU Libraries Gateway page and from the top menu, click on Request forms and from the drop down menu, choose Request an item through Interlibrary Loan (ILL). You will need to register the first time you try this. Articles are usually made available to you in your email in a very few days.
  
  If you already have the citation to an article in hand, go directly to the MU Libraries Gateway, and from the top menu, click on Electronic journals, so you can enter FindIt@MU.
  
  (1) Once you are in FindIt@MU you can key in the title of the journal and you'll be able to get an electronic copy of the article, if we own e-access. If we don't own e-access, then...
  
  (2) You'll be directed to the MERLIN Catalog to see if we own the article in print, or if no print is available, then...
  
  (3) You'll need to use ourILL@MU service as described in (3) above.
  

Finding books

From the MU Libraries Gateway page, click on MERLIN Catalog from the top menu. MERLIN is a catalog of the books, journals, magazines and other materials owned by libraries on this campus, as well as the libraries at the University of Missouri campuses at St. Louis, Kansas City and Rolla.

When you enter a search, by keyword, author, etc., the computer will default to searching only the MU campus, denoted 'MU' in the pull-down menu on the right side of the screen, unless you choose a different library from that menu. By choosing 'ALL MERLIN' from the menu, you can expand your search to include all the libraries in the University of Missouri System. To expand your search still further to find what is available from nearly all the academic libraries in the state of Missouri, click on the MOBIUS button found at the extreme top the the MU Libraries Gateway page.

A record that you find in MERLIN or MOBIUS, provides you with citation information and a call number so that you can find the actual item in a library on this campus or request that an item be sent from one of the other libraries in the MERLIN or MOBIUS systems. Please note that items can only be borrowed from other libraries if they are unavailable from any of of the libraries on the MU campus.

If the item that you want is not available at MU, or through the other MERLIN libraries, or even MOBIUS, you still may request the book through Interlibrary Loan.