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Subject-specific eGuides

Natural Sciences

Searching for resources

There are two key library catalogues you may use when studying at Cambridge:

Girton Library catalogue (Heritage) – search Girton Library’s collection and see if items are available or already on loan. See our eGuide for further information.

iDiscover – to search across the University’s print and electronic collections (including books, eBooks, journals, newspapers, articles and much more, from other colleges, faculty and department libraries, and the University Library. Most, but not all, of Girton’s collection can be found here. See our Searching iDiscover eGuide for further information.

You will be able to borrow from Girton’s Library and the University Library and you may also find it helpful to visit and use the Betty & Gordon Moore Library or the Whipple Library. However, there may be other libraries within Cambridge which stock useful resources. For a full list of the Cambridge libraries see the directory and check each library for access guidelines.

Search Spacefinder to find places of study outside of College.

Subject-specific resources

Biological Sciences

  • bioRxiv is an online archive of unpublished preprints for the life sciences. By publishing here, authors can make their findings immediately available to the scientific community.
  • arXiv is an open-access archive for several million scholarly articles in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics
  • BioMedCentral Open Access Open access peer-reviewed articles in biomedical research
  • HathiTrust (Global Public Domain only) A repository of digitized works from 50 research libraries. 
  • Hindawi Publishing Open Access Hindawi publishes nearly 500 peer-reviewed open access journals covering all areas of Science, Technology and Medicine.
Featured Biochemistry Databases
  • Scopus is a navigation tool covering the world's largest collection of abstracts, references and indexes of scientific, technical and medical (STM) literature. Seamless links to full-text articles and other library resources make Scopus quick, easy and comprehensive.
  • Web of Science (citation indexes), published by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), is a multidisciplinary database, with searchable author abstracts, covering the journal literature of the sciences, social sciences and arts. It indexes major journals in these disciplines. Because the information stored about each article includes the article's cited reference list (often called its bibliography), you can also search the databases for articles that cite a known author or work. The search interface at this website provides access to Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index and Arts & Humanities Citation Index.
  • PubMed contains 16 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for biomedical articles. Includes links to full text articles and related resources.
  • Access to the set of Annual Reviews, including the Annual Review of Biochemistry. These contain time-saving review articles summarising key research and emerging issues. Extensive bibliographies provide authoritative paths to relevant primary literature. The Annual Review of Biochemistry sets the standard for review articles in biological chemistry and molecular biology and serves as an indispensable resource for practicing biochemists and their students.
  • Encyclopedia of Biological Chemistry This resource pulls together over 500 articles that help define and explore contemporary biochemistry
  • The Biomedical and Life Sciences eBook Collection brings together up-to-date resources from trusted authors working around the world in all aspects of life: from patterns of infectious transmission to processes responsible for the loss of biodiversity. The books in this collection cover a wide range of topics, including applied microbiology & biotechnology, infectious diseases, veterinary science, immunology, pharmacology, toxicology, physiology, virology and more.
Useful E-Book Collections

Physical Sciences

  • The Apollo, the institutional repository. This offers a range of information including articles, data, conference presentations and data covering everything from astronomy to zoology.
  • School of Physical Sciences community. If the content you want to see is embargoed (represented by a small padlock symbol) then you can use the Request a Copy service to send an email directly to the author asking to see the material. You can do this by clicking on the name of the file you wish to see. This copy is for your own personal use and does not infringe copyright. 
  • Open Access Button Available as a browser extension or via a website, the Open Access Button searches for legal, open versions of paywalled research.
  • Unpaywall Harvesting open content from over 50,000 publishers and repositories Unpaywall is also available as a browser extension. It also integrates with popular databases such as Scopus and Web of Science.
  • OpenDOAR The Directory of Open Access Repositories offers the ability to search for repositories according to country, discipline or type.
  • Re3Data.org The Registry of Research Data Repositories focuses on collections of openly available research data.
  • SciFinder A research discovery application that provides unlimited access to the world’s most comprehensive and authoritative source of references, substances and reactions in chemistry and related sciences.
Databases
  • arXiv Is an open archive operated by Cornell University for scholarly articles in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics. It is particularly good for finding pre-print articles.
  • Cambridge Core The platform for Cambridge University Press online content including ebooks and journals. Search by keyword, title or browse by subject.
  • MathSciNet Produced by the American Mathematical Society, MathSciNet indexes mathematical literature from 1940 onwards. MathSciNet specializes in reviews, which can be found alongside the bibliographic information of a resource. To see if an article is available online, click on the ejournals@cambridge under the result you are interested in. 
  • NASA Astrophysics Data System A NASA funded project which maintains three databases focusing on astronomy and astrophysics. The ADA will also be of use to those interested in physics and geophysics. 
  • Scopus Scopus is a large multidisciplinary citation and abstract database. It is excellent for searching for interdisciplinary resources. Scopus is also a great way to look at the metrics of an article and see what its reach has been like. 
  • ScienceDirect A database hosting Elsevier published books and journals covering physical sciences and engineering, life sciences, health sciences and social sciences and humanities. Includes some open access materials. 
  • Web of Science Another large scale, multidisciplinary citation index covering journal content for the sciences, the social sciences and the arts. Contains searchable author abstracts. Good for known author/reference searching.
  • GeoScienceWorld A comprehensive resource for researchers in the Earth Sciences.
  • PhysLink.com
Other useful links 
  • Google Scholar If you are accessing Google Scholar from off-campus, you may be asked to log into multiple journal pages. To streamline this, we recommend setting up Library Links. Library Links will cause an ejournals@cambridge link to appear next to search results. Clicking this will redirect you to a holding of this resource if Cambridge subscribes to it saving you from having to work out how to log in on each individual page. 

History and Philosophy of Science

  • History of Science, Technology and Medicine The definitive international bibliography for the history of science, technology, and medicine and their influence on culture, this database now integrates four separately created bibliographies. Expanded at the end of 1999 to include records from an internationally renowned medical collection. Covers pre-history to the present.
  • PhilPapers PhilPapers is a comprehensive index of philosophy books and articles. PhilPapers offers unique features such as real-time indexing of pre-prints, fine-grained classification by topic, email alerts, reading lists, advanced search functionality, and discussion forums.
  • Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy 
  • Scopus Scopus is a navigation tool covering the world's largest collection of abstracts, references and indexes of scientific, technical and medical (STM) literature as well as the research literature of the social sciences and humanities. Seamless links to full-text articles and other library resources make Scopus quick, easy and comprehensive. Compatible with IE8 or higher, Google Chrome and Firefox browsers.
  • Web of Science The Web of Science (citation indexes), published by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), is a multidisciplinary database, with searchable author abstracts, covering the journal literature of the sciences, social sciences and arts. It indexes major journals in these disciplines. Because the information stored about each article includes the article's cited reference list (often called its bibliography), you can also search the databases for articles that cite a known author or work. The search interface at this web site provides access to Science Citation Index,Social Sciences Citation Index and Arts & Humanities Citation Index.
  • Complete dictionary of scientific biography Provides information on the professional lives of scientists, engineers, inventors and other figures of importance to the history of science, from classical antiquity to modern times.
Sources for texts and images
  • Incunabula Short-Title Catalogue (ISTC) The Incunabula Short Title Catalogue is the international database of 15th-century European printing created by the British Library with contributions from institutions worldwide. The database records nearly every item printed from movable type before 1501, but not material printed entirely from woodblocks or engraved plates. 30,375 editions are listed as of March 2014, including some 16th-century items previously assigned incorrectly to the 15th century.
  • Nineteenth Century Short Title Catalog Provides citations and major research library holdings data on all print materials published in the United States and the British Empire from 1801 to 1919, all books in English, wherever published, during that same time, as well as translations from English. The 1.2 million records in the database are drawn from eight copyright and research libraries.
  • Universal Short Title Catalogue (USTC) 
  • Eighteenth Century Collections Online Eighteenth Century Collections Online, a comprehensive digital edition of The Eighteenth Century, the world's largest library on microfilm of the printed book available through its imprint Primary Source Microfilm.
  • ARTstor Database of digital images and accompanying scholarly information for use in art history and other humanistic fields of learning, including the related social sciences. The ARTstor Digital Library includes approximately 300,000 images covering art, architecture and archeology.
  • British Library Images Online
  • Wellcome Images 

Departmental websites

 

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Library staff can provide support and assistance. You can book an appointment with us or ask a question via library@girton.cam.ac.uk.

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