Physics & astronomy
Useful resources for finding academic literature for Physics and Astronomy.
ACM Digital Library
| Access information: | Access on and off campus |
| Description: | Full text of every journal article and conference proceedings ever published by the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) and bibliographic citations from major publishers in computing. |
ArXiv.org is a key resource
ArXiv.org E-Print Repository
| Access information: | Freely available. |
| Description: |
Searchable, full-text repository of author-submitted research papers for physics, mathematics, non-linear science, computer science and quantitative biology. Papers in arXiv.org are often preprints (preliminary versions of papers yet to be peer reviewed and published). However, the published version of articles may also be available. Email alerts or RSS feeds available. Limited citation searching is possible via CiteBase (but for a published paper use the Science Citation Index). |
| Coverage: | 1991-present. |
Astrorara: interactive historical astronomical illustrations
| Access information: | Freely available. |
| Description: |
Astronomical book illustrations selected from ETH Library showing the use intended by their creators of illustrations in the the works of astronomers Peter Apian (1495–1552), Christoph Scheiner (1575–1650) and Johannes Hevelius (1611–1687). The ETH Library is the largest public library of the natural sciences and technology in Switzerland and the main library at ETH Zurich. Astronomical and mathematical works form the core of the collection. |
CERN Document Server (CDS)
| Access information: | Free access on and off-campus from CERN. |
| Description: | Approximately 950,000 bibliographic records for particle physics material and related areas, includes 360,000 full text documents and covers preprints, articles, books, journals, photographs and standards. Email alerts or RSS feeds are available. |
Computer Index of Nuclear Reaction Data (CINDA)
| Access information: | Freely available. |
| Description: |
Bibliographic references to measurements, calculations, reviews, and evaluations of neutron cross-sections and other microscopic neutron data. Includes index references to numerical neutron data from four regional neutron data centers. Photonuclear and charged particle reaction data included since 2005. |
| Coverage: | Two automatic updates from EXFOR and NSR each year. |
CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics online
| Access information: | Access on and off campus. For off campus access please use the University VPN - Access to the University network via the VPN. |
| Description: |
Physical property data and mathematical formulae. Tables are interactive. Structure and property searching is available. Also includes current international recommendations on nomenclature, symbols, and units. Plus biographies of renowned chemists and physicists. |
| Coverage: | Updated 101st edition. |
IEEE Xplore Digital Library
| Access information: |
Access on or off campus. |
| Description: | Full text access to documents from IEEE journals, transactions, magazines, letters, conference proceedings, standards, and IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology) publications. |
Inspec is a key resource
Inspec
| Access information: | Access on and off campus. |
| Description: | The Institution of Engineering and Technology’s (IET) Inspec database has over 16 million indexed records with abstracts of articles published more than 6,500 physics, computer science, electronics, electrical engineering, control engineering journals and conference proceedings. Published by the Institution of Engineering and Technology. Indexes arXiv content. |
| Coverage: | 1896-present |
INSPIRE High-Energy Physics Literature Database (formerly SPIRES)
| Access information: | Freely available. |
| Description: | Searchable, full-text repository containing more than 500,000 high-energy physics related articles, including journal papers, preprints, e-prints, technical reports and conference papers. Additional databases include HEP related institutions, researchers, conferences and experiment summaries. Email alerts or RSS feeds available. |
| Coverage: | From 1930s onwards. |
| Additional information: |
Limited cited reference searching is possible but for a published paper also use Web of Science |
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
| Access information: | Freely available from University of Nottingham. |
| Description: | More than 7.8 million astronomy and astrophysics, instrumentation, physics and geophysics bibliographic records from journals, conference proceedings, several Observatory reports and newsletters, many NASA reports, and PhD theses. Also, includes scans of more than 200,000 articles from astrophysical publications. Email alerts and RSS feeds available |
Physical Sciences Data-science Service (PSDS)
| Access information: |
Free at the point of access for students and academics of UK academic institutions. Personal registration may be required for some services. VPN service may be required to register from off campus. |
| Description: |
A suite of chemistry databases and tools provided by the University of Southampton and the Science and Technology Facilities Council. Funded by the EPSRC. |
| Coverage: | Cambridge Structural Database (CSD), DETHERM, ACD/ILab, BIOVIA Available Chemicals Directory (ACD), FIZ Karlsruhe's Inorganic Crystal Structure Database (ICSD), CrystalWorks and SPRESIweb. |
| Additional information: |
About the Physical Sciences Data-science Service (Science & Technology Facilities Services [Daresbury] hosted CrystalWorks access) |
SCOAP3 Repository
| Access information: | Free access on and off-campus from SCOAP3 consortium. |
| Description: | Full-text, open access articles from 10 (as of July 2014) High Energy Physics journals. |
| Access information: | Access on and off campus. |
| Description: | Abstract and citation database containing both peer-reviewed research literature and quality web sources. Contains over 16 million author profiles, 70,000 institutional profiles, 5000 publishers, 70 million records, 1.4 billion cited references, covers over 20,000 journals from health, life, physical and social sciences and the humanities. |
| Coverage: | For some subject areas, from 1788 onwards. |
| User guide: | https://elsevier.libguides.com/Scopus/home |
| Note: | The University of Edinburgh's Affiliation ID is 60027272 (used for configuring Papers 3 for Mac to work with Scopus). |
| Note: | If you would like to register to receive personalised searches, alerts etc then select "Other Institution login", then add "Edinburgh" to the search box to find the University of Edinburgh log in link, select the Shibboleth option if requested. |
swMATH (softwareMATH)
| Access information: | Freely available. |
| Description: | Database of information on mathematical software. Includes systematic linking of software packages with relevant mathematical publications (from ZentralblattMATH). |
| Articles describe the background and technical details of a program or publications in which a piece of software is applied or used for research. |
Web of Science Core Collection is a key resource
Web of Science Core Collection
| Access information: |
Access on and off campus. |
| Russian Science Citation Index is not presently included in the Web of Science. | |
| Description: |
Citations and abstracts to millions of journal articles and conference proceedings from all subjects. Cited reference searching, Impact Factors, h-indexes and email alerts available. |
| Coverage: |
Arts & Humanities (1975 onwards), Science and Social Sciences Citation Indexes (both 1900 onwards), Conference Proceedings in Science and Social Science & Humanities (both 1990 onwards). Also: Book Citation Indexes in Science and Social Sciences & Humanities (both 2005 onwards), Current Chemical Reactions (1986 onwards), Emerging Sources Citation Index (2015 onwards), Current Chemical Reactions (1985 onwards), Index Chemicus (1993 onwards). Change "Search in:" to use: BIOSIS Citation Index (1926 onwards), Current Contents Connect (1998 onwards), Data Citation Index (1990 onwards), Derwent Innovations Index (1966 onwards), KCI-Korean Journal Database (1980 onwards), Medline (1950 onwards), PrePrint Citation Index (1991 onwards), ProQuest Dissertatoins & Theses Citation Index (1637 onwards), SciELO Citation Index (2002 onwards), Zoological Record (1864 onwards). |
| Help: |
Finding articles which have in their reference lists a work you found useful ('cited reference searching'): |
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Journal Citation Reports (JCR): |