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SpringerLink Journals Online Collection

SpringerLink consists of over 1,000 electronic journals (1997 forward) from scientific, technical and medical disciplines.

When you launch SpringerLink from the Library's web site, you will see four search options:

Articles by citation | Articles by text | CrossRef Search | Publications

The default is to search Articles by citation, though many users will wish to use the Articles by text option.

Search Tip!

SpringerLink requires that you "click" on the search button. Should you press the enter key, instead of clicking the search button, the screen will revert to the home page.

What is a search query?

At its simplest, a search query can be just a word or a phrase. But with the tips on this page, you can expand the focus of your query to give you more complete results. These tips will get you started with basic query language and acquaint you with the full power of the search engine.

What are search operators?

Operators are reserved words that allow you to construct more refined searches. The Proximity operator NEAR, allows you to locate items containing specific words or phrases located near one another. Boolean operators, however, allow you to use the words AND, OR, and NOT to locate items containing specific words. Boolean and proximity operators cannot be searched for since they are considered reserved words by the search engine. In addition, very common words, such as the and is are considered "noise" words by the search engine and are eliminated from the criteria before the search is performed.

What else can I do?

  • Use the single * to look for words with the same prefix. Example - type key* to find key, keying, keyhole, keyboard, and so on.
  • Use the double ** to search for all forms of a word. Example - type sink** to find sink, sinking, sank, and sunk.
  • Search with the keyword NEAR, rather than AND, for words close to each other. Example - type system AND manager or system NEAR manager, to look for the words system and manager in the same field. But with NEAR, the returned links (hits) are ranked in order of the proximity of the search terms: The closer together the terms are in the searched field, the higher the rank, which causes those hits to be displayed higher in the results list.
  • Choose Exact Phrase search if you want the search engine to take them literally.
  • Refine your queries with the AND NOT keywords to exclude certain text. Example - type surfing AND NOT the Net, to find all instances of surfing but not surfing the Net.
  • Use OR to find alternate spellings of words. Example - type color OR colour to find all instances of either spelling of the word color.

How do I view full text articles for my subscribed journals?

Whenever you see the symbol of the eyeglasses Subscribed icon for an article, this means that the full text article is viewable for you. This eyeglasses symbol is shown in search results and on the issue level.

SpringerLink offers two different formats in which electronic articles may be viewed: PDF or HTML. By "Searching" or "Browsing" for a subscribed journal Subscribed icon, you will be taken to the publication's homepage (the page that lists the volumes and issues available electronically). In general you should be able to view all full texts of those journals to which you or your institution subscribes.

Printing and downloading articles

In order to download or print articles while viewing articles on SpringerLink, you will need to use the Adobe Acrobat toolbar. Selecting the "File" option from an Internet browser may not work correctly. To download or print from Adobe Acrobat: The download option resembles a computer disk and is located on the Adobe Acrobat toolbar. The print option resembles a printer and is located on the Adobe Acrobat toolbar.

Logging Off

After you have completed your search in SpringerLink, please use the logoff button in the upper right section of the screen.