Information on Faculty Services supporting Instruction and Research

Science, Engineering and Math @ the CSULB Library weblog

 

Use COAST, the CSULB Library Catalog, to find books on Biological Sciences topics. 

Call Numbers and Locations

  Reference Resources

The American Horticultural Society A-Z encyclopedia of garden plants REF SB403.2 .A45 1997
     1 large volume covers thousands of plants, contains color photographs, and the index includes both scientific and common names.

CBE Style Manual: a guide for authors, editors, and publishers in the biological sciences.  REF QH304 .C68 1983

EBSCO Animals "Provides in-depth information on a variety of topics relating to animals. The database consists of indexing, abstracts, and full text records describing the nature and habitat of familiar animals."  Go to Academic Search Elite, click on "Choose Databases" at the top, and scroll to the bottom to select EBSCO Animals.

Encyclopedia of Biodiversity REF QH541.15.B56 E53 2001
     Five volume set.

Encyclopedia of Bioethics / Warren Thomas Reich, editor in chief REF QH332 .E52 1995

Encyclopedia of Evolution / Mark Pagel, editor in chief  REF QH360.2 .O83 2002

Encyclopedia of Microbiology REF QR9 .E53 2000
     Four volume set.

Peterson's Graduate Programs in the Biological Sciences REF L901 .P444

 Finding Articles

Step One

The first step in finding scholarly/ peer reviewed articles for research is to use a database or index to find citations (including titles) of articles that are on your topic.  Online databases are listings of articles published in a particular set of journals.  Paper indexes also list articles by subject and title and are updated with new printings periodically.
Keep in mind that for academic research you want to stick with scholarly articles published in journals like Advances in Nursing Science as opposed to news type articles in magazines like Newsweek.  Some databases will even allow you to limit your search to scholarly articles, also called peer-reviewed, juried, or refereed articles, by checking a box.

Visit the Finding Articles by Topic Biology/Zoology webpage for quick access to the following databases as well as others useful for biology research.

Online databases

Biological Abstracts
- Indexes over 3,700 serials each year
- Covers topics in every life sciences discipline. BioAbs directs users to information on life science topics from botany to microbiology to pharmacology

General Science Abstracts
-Over 160 journals covered from 1984 to present
-Covers anthropology, astronomy, biology, computers, earth sciences, medicine and health, pollution
-CINAHL indexes journals, books, pamphlets, audiovisuals, software, research instruments, dissertations and others.

Medline
-Indexes articles from 1951 to present and is updated daily
-The National Library of Medicine’s international biomedicine & health journal database covering all areas of medicine, including dentistry, nursing, veterinary medicine, the health care system, preclinical sciences.
-The majority of the publications covered in MEDLINE are scholarly journals; a small number of newspapers, magazines, and newsletters considered useful to the discipline are included.

ScienceDirect - Full text and full page images are provided for most of these journals. ScienceDirect is a database covering most of the journals published by Elsevier Science, and some other scholarly publishers.  It covers the latest 5 years to present.  Journals are updated immediately upon publication of a new journal issue.

Print Indexes 
(Use for finding older articles not covered in the online databases.)

Biological Abstracts (1926-1993) Room 407: QH 301 B37
     Also available online.

Zoological Record (1870-1999) Room 407: QL 45 Z6
     Invaluable retrospective index.  A comprehensive annual index of zoological entities appearing in publication since 1864.  Each volume indexes the publications of that year.  Search to species level.

Index Medicus   Room 407 R129 .I46

Step Two

After you have found citations for articles that seem relevant to your topic, you need to access the articles themselves.  You can decide if they are relevant (articles that will answer your question) by looking at titles and abstracts (short summaries of the articles) in the database citation. 

Getting the article (Follow these steps until you have the article in hand):

Try to get the article electronically:

Some articles will be available in full-text or PDF format by simply clicking a link right in the database. 

If there is no direct link, look for an    link which searches for the article in any database subscribed to by CSULB and sometimes the COAST library catalog as well to let you know if CSULB has access to the article anywhere. 

If SFX doesn't find the article, you should still try to find the journal in COAST on your own. Search using the journal title, not the article title.  Make sure you know which year, volume, issue and page numbers you need.

If it is available online, you should be able to click a link and then either print the article or e-mail it to yourself. 

If the journal is not available electronically, get the article in paper:

Try a COAST Title of journal, magazine, newspaper search using the journal title, not the article title, to see if CSULB has the journal in paper copy. 

If it is available in paper form at CSULB you will have to come to the library to photocopy it.  Make sure you write down the ENTIRE citation (author, title, journal title, volume, number, year, pages) from the database and the call number from COAST. 

If it is not available electronically or at CSULB you can still request the article through Interlibrary Loan.  This gets the article from another library either in paper or electronically and usually takes 7-10 days.  So be sure to start your research early!  If you are in a hurry, you can check other library's catalogs and possibly go to that library to get the article.

Highly Cited Journals in the Biological Sciences

Need help deciphering journal title abbreviations?

JAKE (Jointly Administered Knowledge Environment)
http://jake.openly.com/
Type in your journal title abbreviation and find out what the full title is!

   Need Help?

Contact Cathy Outten, Biological Sciences Librarian

• visit the reference desk on the first floor of the library,
• try 24/7 chat with a librarian, or
• set up an appointment with Cathy.

 This page maintained by Cathy Outten, Science Librarian
University Library, California State University, Long Beach