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Physics
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Below are a few major, frequently used sources for the study of physics. The physics literature is international in scope and organized into primary (the first public record of the research) and secondary (works derived from primary sources) publications. See also the guides to Astronomy, Chemistry, Mathematics and Science. Please consult with a reference librarian for directions to many more sources in your topic. Internet resources require a Tufts I.D. number for off-campus access (authorized users statement). |
Facts and Background Information [back to top]
Reference Resources
Classification
Physics & Astronomy Classification
Scheme.
The classification structure prepared by the American Institute
of Physics and used for the subject classification of articles
to be indexed.
Dictionaries & Encyclopedias
Oxford Dictionary of Physics
[PRINT. Tisch Reference QC5 .C56 2000]
Over 3,500 concise entries.
Macmillian Encyclopedia of Physics
[PRINT. Tisch Reference QC5.M15 1996]
Brief alphabetical entries with cross references and glossary
of short concept definitions. Good resource for beginners.
McGraw Hill Dictionary of Physics. 1997.
[PRINT. Tisch Reference QC5 .M424 1997]
More than 9,200 terms defined for physics and fifteen related
fields.
Directories
Community
of Science (COS)
An internet site for the global research and development community.
Within the site are: COS Expertise, which gives personal profiles
of professional in the research community, and COS Funding Opportunities,
a prime source for grant information.
Graduate
Programs in Physics
A listing of graduate programs in physics in the U. S. and Canada,
maintained by the Physics Department of Duke University.
Physics Departments
Worldwide
Worldwide guide to physics departments.
physicsweb
Institute of Physics website for physics news, jobs, and resources
PhysLINK.1995.
Comprehensive website focused on physics and astronomy education,
research and reference data.
Handbooks & Data Tables
CRC Handbook of Chemistry & Physics.
2002.
[PRINT Tisch reference desk QD65 .H3]
Reliable source for chemical, physical and engineering data, including
mathematical tables and physical constants.
Handbook of Optics. 1995-2001.
[PRINT Tisch Reference QC369 .H35 1995]
General purpose reference covering both basic and applied aspects
of optics.
NIST Physics Laboratory
National Institute of Standards & Technology Physics Lab Web
Site. Develops new physical standards, measurements, methods & data.
NIST Physical
Reference Data
Contains physical constants and spectroscopy data.
NIST
Measurement & Standards Laboratories
Offers standards in various scientific areas.
NIST
Reference on Constants, Units & Uncertainty
Information on constants, units, & uncertainty.
A library's catalog covers most aspects of a subject over centuries of publications in many languages. Catalogs can be searched by author, title, subject and keyword. Tisch Library uses the Library of Congress (LC) classification scheme. LC classification brings similar books together on the shelves, which facilitates browsing. Physics books are classified in QC.
The Catalogs
Boston Library Consortium Catalogs
Harvard University Library System Catalog (HOLLIS)
National Research
Council of Canada
Includes Canada Institute for Scientific & Technical Information
(CISTI).
WorldCat.
FirstSearch.
Covers almost all of the catalogs of the major research libraries,
as well as public libraries worldwide.
Other Sources for Books
Books
in Print
Lists books currently in print and available in the market for
purchasing.
Powell's Books
Used, new and out of print books.
Document Delivery
Borrow from other libraries--both
books and journal articles.
To locate articles or research papers within periodicals and journals, it is necessary to use specialized databases known as indexes. Database searching tips (also available in PDF) valuable information on how to construct a search for best results.
Indexes
Physics Indexes
INSPEC
1969-
Institution of Electrical Engineering. 1969-
Access is via Engineering Village 2, the Institute of Physics
AXIOM research service. Choose INSPEC in the Select Database
box on the EV2 homepage. For standard service a password is not
required. For enhanced service providing personalization, alerting,
and search history, you will need to create an account with a
password. INSPEC is the leading database for the world's literature
in physics, electrical and electronics engineering, computing,
and information technology. It corresponds to the print publications
Physics Abstracts, Electrical and Electronic Abstracts, and Computer
and Control Abstracts.
Stanford Linear
Accelerator SPIRES HEP Database. 1974-
Indexes high energy physics articles, encompassing journal papers,
preprints, e-prints technical reports, conference papers and theses.
Links to citing papers for journal articles and preprints.
Science Indexes
Current
Contents
An ISI current awareness database with an interdisciplinary focus;
covers science, social science and humanities; includes latest
issue of the journal with table of contents from over 8,000 of
the world's research journals and some evaluated scholarly web
sites. Can create auto alerts for e-mail updates. Has search and
journal browse functions. Updated daily.
Science
Citation Index Expanded 1945-
Part of the ISI Web of Science, provides author, subject and citation
access to journal articles and book reviews in the sciences, as
well as citation values for particular papers plus citation tracking
and related records. Updated weekly.
Scopus. Elsevier, 1966-
An index to the world's scientific, technical and medical literature (14,000 scholarly titles),
including 2,700 titles in Social Science, Psychology and Economics. Updated daily. Non-English
titles are covered as long as English abstracts are available. Full-text linking is available
wherever the technology and the access arrangements permit and continues to expand as such
arrangements allow. Integrated web searching and patent searching by Scirus.
Electronic journals
Periodicals are listed in the library catalog. Holdings in all formats are unified in one record, and most entries for journals held in electronic format contain a hyperlink to the source; searches in the web-based catalog enable one to follow these links directly. A complete list of electronic journals is on the Tisch homepage under Electronic journals.
Collections of Electronic Journals
American
Institute of Physics Online Journal Publishing Service (OJPS)
Provides online access to the journals published by AIP and its
member societies. Tufts does not subscribe to all of the titles
available on this service. If one is asked for a user ID and Password
it means that this is an unsubscribed title for which there is
no full-text access. Full-text access to the AIP titles starts
with 1997. The Physical Review titles also include access to Physical
Review Online Archive (PROLA), which archives the Physical Review
journal titles (1893-1999). Tufts has full-text access to this
archive.
Institute
of Physics Electronic Journals 1874-
Tufts has full-text access to the titles to which it subscribes
from 1993 to date.
ScienceDirect
(Elsevier)
A database of over 1,700 journal titles covering the life, physical,
technical and social sciences. Titles start with the initial volume
of publication; all titles have tables of contents and abstracts,
and most have full-text articles. Tufts has access to approximately
800 titles from 1995 to date. The titles formerly published by
Academic Press commence with 1993. Green boxes indicate subscribed
titles; white boxes are for unsubscribed titles. Please note:
ScienceDirect no longer provides access to unsubscribed titles.
Articles from unsubscribed titles must be obtained from Tisch
Document Delivery or purchased directly from ScienceDirect.
SpringerLink
Provides access to 460+ electronic journals with full-text and
some book series. The focus is on science and technology. It
is organized into forms or subject libraries. Click on the rust box
in All Libraries to retrieve a list of journals in Physics & Astronomy.
To gain access to the Springer A-Z pull down the top right hand
bar.
Wiley
InterScience
Provided is full-text access to 300+ journals published by John
Wiley & Sons. Subjects covered are: Business, Finance &
Management, Chemistry, Computer Science, Earth Science, Education,
Engineering, Law, Life & Medical Science, Mathematics & Statistics,
Physics and Psychology.
Pre-Print Archives
ArXiv.org e-print archive
A preprint archive for physics. Originally the Los Alamos National
Laboratory Eprint Archive, now at Cornell University.
Fermilab
Preprints 1995-
Preprints and technical publications from Fermilab.
Physics Preprints,
Abstracts, Reports
Preprint site for physics maintained by the Center for Scientific
Computing in Finland.
Preprint Network
A preprint gateway for the Department of Energy (DOE) in disciplines
of concern to DOE. Includes physics, materials, and chemistry,
biology, environmental sciences and nuclear medicine.
Other Sources for Research Papers
Conferences and Proceedings
Many scientific papers are first presented at a conference and
published in the proceedings of the meeting:
ISI
Web of Science Proceedings
An index to the published literature in significant conferences,
symposia, and seminars.
Physics Web Calendar
Provides links to upcoming conferences in physics from around
the world.
Dissertations
Doctoral dissertations are another source for original research:
Dissertation
Abstracts. OCLC FirstSearch. 1861-
Indexes dissertations accepted at accredited institutions, covers
all disciplines. Updated monthly.
Government Reports
GreyLit Network (US Government)
A science portal of technical reports from the Department of Energy,
Department of Defense, Environmental Protection Agency and NASA.
National
Laboratories
Links to Argonne, Brookhaven, Fermi, LBL, Los Alamos, Oak Ridge,
Sandia national laboratories.
National Nanotechnology Initiative
Government website pertaining to nanotechnology research
National Science Foundation
U. S. government agency responsible for science and engineering.
Patents
Derwent
Innovations Index
A resource for patent literature from 40 patent issuing authorities.
Uses the ISI search interface and links forward in time to citing
patents and backwords in time to cited patents. Coverage for some
patents begins in 1963.
esp@cenet (Searchable Worldwide
Patents database) 1920-
Free worldwide patent information with full-text patents.
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
Website for the USPTO. Information on patenting an idea, doing
a patent search, and locating patent depository library.
USPTO Patent
Classification Home Page
U.S. Manual on Patent Classification searchable website.
Find Web Resources on the Internet
In the 1980s the World Wide Web emerged and spawned publications of its own independent of the print traditions. Information retrieved from the open web must be reviewed for authority, accuracy and authenticity. Web search engines without the indexing structural components lack the subject precision in retrieval that the online databases provide. Keeping these limitations in mind, there are some excellent information resources available from the open web, especially those coming from government agencies and universities. See how to evaluate web resources.
General Web Search Engines
Google
A top ranked web search engine, with good relevancy. Uses tabs
at the top of the search box. The tab entitled Groups (a usenet
news database) will retrieve the category sci with physics as
a sub-category. The tab Directory is a Page Rank version of the
Open Directory and includes a category for Science with Physics
as a sub-category. This sub category includes access to Physics
Today, a monthly news magazine for the physics community.
There is also a tab for Images and News.
Alltheweb.com
Good web search engine. Indexes full webpage, PDF files, Microsoft
Word files, and text within Flash files. Also includes tabs for
databases of news, pictures, videos, audio and FTP files.
Science Web Search Engines
Scirus
A comprehensive science specific search engine. Locates peer-reviewed
articles.
Listed below are some selected web megasites. They were chosen for topical content, breadth of scope, and sponsoring organization.
BUBL LINK – Physics
Education
Catalog of web resources in physics and astronomy education.
CFD online
An online center for computational fluid dynamics. Extensive list
of Computational Fluid Dynamics web resources; job database and
some materials property data.
Chaos at Maryland. University
of Maryland.
Website about nonlinear science and chaos.
Crystal Lattice
Structures
Index of common crystal lattice structures, a graphical representation.
Online Particle
Physics Information
Webpages for particle physics researchers.
P.A.M.
Resources in Physics
Physics-Astronomy-Mathematics (PAM) Special Libraries Association
web links. Focuses on people, professional societies, institutions,
reference, e-prints, and pathfinders.
Particle-Surface
Resources on the Internet
List of resources about particle-surface interactions and related
fields.
SciCentral.com
A portal to scientific and technical resources. Created and maintained
by professional scientists.
Scientific
Visualization Sites
Annotated bibliography of scientific visualizations sites. A service
of NAS (Numerical Aerospace Simulation).
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for questions about library collections.
Regina Raboin. Contact
for reference questions and instruction requests.
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