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Home > Searching > Research Guides By Subject > Biology Updated: February 9, 2007
Facts and Background Information
Selected print and electronic encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks, etc.
Books
Locate items in the library catalog and other libraries.
Articles
Use indexes to search for articles in journals, proceedings, etc.
Websites
Recommended academic, professional, and learned societies sites, and more.
Contact a Librarian

Below are a few major, frequently used sources for the study of Biology. The literature is international in scope and organized into primary (the first public record of the research) and secondary (works derived from primary sources) publications, although this distinction is beginning to be blurred in some web resources.

See also the research guide(s): Agriculture, Plant Sciences, and Botany; Environmental Science, Ecology & Biodiversity; Molecular Biology & Bioinformatics; and General Science. For additional information on sources please consult a librarian. 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

Synopsis & Classification of Living Organisms
[PRINT. Tisch Reference QH83 .S89 1982]
Covers systemic relationships of all living organisms for all taxa down to the family level.

Dictionaries

BioTech Life Sciences Dictionary
8300+ terms dealing with biochemistry, biotechnology, botany, cell biology and genetics. Also some terms relating to ecology, limnology, pharmacology, toxicology and medicine.

Chambers Biology Dictionary
[PRINT. Tisch Reference QH302.5 .C45 1989]
Defines 10,000 terms used in biology.

Glossary of Marine Biology

Henderson's Dictionary of Biological Terms
[PRINT. Tisch Reference QH302.5 .H65 1995]
An excellent dictionary for biological terms, their derivation and pronunciation.

Index to Organisms' Names. BIOSIS.
An aid for the general bioscience community giving basic nomenclature and hierarchy information, Zoological Record volume occurrence counts for animal names, and links to other organizations' data for non-animal names.

Nomenclatural Glossary for Zoology
Glossary used in the indexing of Zoological Record, includes terminology from the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, 4th ed, 1999.

Encyclopedias

Encyclopedia of Life Sciences
A reference work integrating current theory and practice of all basic and applied aspects of the life sciences, with an emphasis on cell and molecular biology.

Guides

Biologist's Guide to Library Resources. Department of Biology and Tisch Library, Tufts University.
A student's guide to biology resources.

Bio 14 Library Research. Department of Biology and Tisch Library, Tufts University.
For the beginning student, a resource on how to find and use biology resources.

Birds of North America. Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
A comprehensive resource for the 716 species of birds nesting in the USA and Canada. Included are bird songs and calls, maps of breeding and wintering ranges, routes of migration, video to illustrate key behaviors and an image gallery focusing on plumage, habitat, eggs, nests and behaviors. Extensive references.

Internet Resource Guide for Zoology
A guide for finding zoological information on the web. Information now being updated on Biology Browser.

Field Guide Series
There are numerous field guides to animals and plants, such as Audubon and the Peterson series. Consult the library catalog for specific titles.

Handbooks & Protocols

CRC Handbook of Chemistry & Physics
[PRINT. Tisch reference desk QD65 .H3 2002]
Classic source for reliable chemical, physical and engineering data.

Current Protocols Online
Laboratory manuals on methods giving step-by-step procedures. Tufts subscribes to the following sections only: Cell Biology, Human Genetics, Molecular Biology, Nucleic Acid Chemistry, and Protein Science.

Methods in Enzymology
A standard source for methods and protocols in molecular biology. Some topics coverd are: guide to yeast genetics and molecular biology, branch chain amino acids, recombinant DNA, molecular evolution .

Protocols-Online - Your Lab's Reference Book
Covers a broad range of biological protocols, also includes research tools, such as, Calculators & Converters, PRC related calculators, and others.

Reviews

Annual Reviews in Biomedical Sciences
Eighteen annual review titles covering the major areas in the biomedical sciences. Search individual titles or across the suite of titles.

Software Review Archive. BIOSIS.
Links to over 150 non-critical reviews of biological software packages.

Resources for Writing

RefWorks
A web-based reference/citation and bibliography manager. Allows users to keep track of and download citations from our internet databases/indexes and then use these references for writing and automatically formatting papers and bibliographies. This software works with EndNote too!

Style Manuals

Electronic Styles: A Handbook for Citing Electronic Information
[PRINT. Tisch reference desk PN171 .F56 L5 1996]
Guide for citing all types of electronic information.

Scientific Style & Format: The CBE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers
[PRINT. Tisch Reference T11 .S386 1994]
The standard style guide for scientific writing. Covered are: styles, mechanics, and special scientific conventions. The section describing how to write and submit papers for journal publication has been removed to allow for the inclusion of more disciplines.

A Short Guide to Writing About Biology
[PRINT. Tisch Book Stacks QH304 .P43 1997]
Style guide for college students; covers laboratory reports, term papers, oral presentations and more.

Sciences: Documenting Sources

NLM Recommended Formats for Bibliographic Citations - Supplement: Internet Formats


Find Books     [back to top]

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. Books on Biology are classified in QH (Natural History); QK (Botany); QL (Zoology); QM (Human Anatomy); QP (Physiology); and QR (Microbiology).

The Catalogs

Library Catalog How To Use

Boston Library Consortium Catalogs How To Use

Harvard University Library System Catalog (HOLLIS)

National Research Council of Canada
Includes Canada Institute for Scientific & Technical Information (CISTI).

WorldCat. FirstSearch. How To Use
Click on WorldCat or select WorldCat database from the search box.
Covers almost all of the catalogs of the major research libraries, as well as public libraries.

Other Sources for Books

Books in Print
Lists books currently in print and available on the market for purchasing.

Document Delivery
Borrow from other libraries, both books and journal articles.

The Online Books Page - Call Numbers QH-QR (Biological Sciences)
A listing of books freely readable online hosted by the University of Pennsylvania Library


Find Articles     [back to top]

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) provides valuable information on how to construct a search for best results.

Indexes

AGRICOLA. COS, 1979-
Comprehensive database of bibliographic records of journal articles, theses, patents, software, and technical reports related to agriculture from 1979 to the present.

Biology Digest
Provides access to abstracts on non-technical information for topics such as botany, life sciences, environmental science, medicine, and zoology.

BIOSIS Previews. ISI, 1980- How To Use
Supplies comprehensive coverage of nearly 5,500 life science journals and 1,500 items from international meetings, review articles, and books.

Cambridge Scientific Abstracts - Aquatic Sciences. CSA/IDS.
Select Aquatic Sciences and click on quick search to retrieve ASFA: Aquatic Sciences & Fisheries Abstracts (1971-). This category contains five subcategories, of particular relevance to Biology is ASFA1: Biological Sciences & Living Resources.

Cambridge Scientific Abstracts - Biological and Medical Sciences. CSA/IDS.
Select Biological and Medical Sciences and click on Quick Search to retrieve the Biological and Medical Sciences category with its seven indexes including Zoological Record Plus. Choose Biological Sciences Search Subfiles to specifically search any of its twenty-three indexes.
Please note: the National Biological Information Infrastructure has recently published a thesaurus to a number of the CSA indexes entitled NBII Biocomplexity Thesaurus.

Current Contents Connect. ISI. How To Use
An ISI current awareness database with an interdisciplinary focus; covers science, social science and humanities; includes the latest issue and table of contents from over 8,000 of the world's research journals and some evaluated scholarly websites. Can create auto alerts for e-mail updates. Has search and journal browse functions. Updated daily. Holdings are for one year.

MEDLINE. Ovid, 1966- Old Medline, 1951-1965. How To Use
National Library of Medicine's bibliographic database covering the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, and pre-clinical sciences.

PubMED. NLM.
A service of the National Library of Medicine, the site provides access to over 12 million MEDLINE citations back to the mid-1960's and additional life science journals. PubMed includes links to many sites providing full text articles and other related resources.

PrimateLit. University of Wisconsin Primate Library.
Indexes articles, books, technical reports, dissertations, book chapters form 1940 to the present.

Science Citation Index Expanded. ISI, 1945- How To Use
Part of the ISI Web of Science, this index provides author, subject and citation access to journal articles and book reviews in the sciences, as well as citation values for particular papers, 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.

Zoological Record Plus. CSA/IDS, 1993-
Covers the world's zoological and animal scientific literature. The "unofficial register" for taxonomy and systematics.

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.

Key Weekly Science Journals

Nature. Nature Publishing Group.
Current: v387-, 1997-
Back volumes v. 54-84 (1896-1910) and v.132- (1937-): [PRINT. Tisch Bound Periodicals Q1 .N2]
Back volumes v.112-131 (1923-1933): [MICROFORMS. R93]

Science. AAAS.
Current: v270-, (1995-)
Back volumes v.1-270, (1800-1995)

Collections of Electronic Journals

BioMedCentral
BioMedCentral is an independent publishing house committed to providing immediate free access to peer-reviewed biomedical research and has established 57 new titles in the biomedical sciences.

BioOne
A collection of research journals in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences published by small societies and non-commercial publishers.

Blackwell Synergy. Blackwell Publishing.
Provides full-text access to 600+ scholarly journals. To browse Biology, select Life and Physical Sciences.

Directory of Open Access Journals
List of free, full-text open access and vetted scientific and scholarly journals on a variety of subjects. Hosted by Lund University.

HighWire Press
Contains the full text of 335 leading biomedical journals available primarily from professional societies. Archival backfiles are open access. Subscriptions are need for the current year. Consult the library catalog to see if Tufts subscribes to the title.

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 non-subscribed titles. Please note: ScienceDirect no longer provides access to non-subscribed titles. Articles from non-subscribed titles must be obtained from Tisch Document Delivery - Borrow from Other Libraries or purchased directly from ScienceDirect. Users can browse the SD Agricultural and Biological Sciences journals and the Biochemistry, Genetics, and Molecular journals.

SpringerLink
Provides access to 460+ electronic journals with full-text and some book series. The focus is on science and technology. Browse Online Libraries for titles in the Life Sciences.

Wiley InterScience
Provides full-text access to 300+ journals published by John Wiley & Sons. To browse the Life and Medical Sciences journals click on Journal Finder

Your Journals @ Ovid. OVID, 1996-
From the menu, choose Your Journals at Ovid, this will limit the search to only those journals to which Tufts subscribes. Note: The Tufts collection is primarily biomedical in nature, with an emphasis on clinical medicine. There is seamless linking connecting the bibliographic databases with the full text of the journal article. Coverage is from 1996 to present.

Other Sources for Research Papers

Pre-prints, conferences and proceedings, dissertations, and technical reports are other sources for original research.

ISI Proceedings How To Use
An index to the published literature of significant conferences, symposia, and seminars.

Conference Papers Index. CSA/IDS, 1982-
Citation to papers presented at major science meetings worldwide; focus is on life, environmental and aquatic sciences. To retrieve Conference Papers select Biological & Medical Science and click on Quick Search.

Dissertation Abstracts. First Search. 1861- How To Use
Indexes dissertations accepted at accredited institutions; covers all disciplines. Updated monthly.

Tufts University Dissertations. ProQuest, 1996- How To Use
Tufts dissertations and theses published in Dissertation Abstracts from 1996 to date. Provides full-text access.

GrayLit Network. U.S. Government.
A science portal of technical reports from the Department of Energy, Department of Defense, Environmental Protection Agency, and NASA.

Patents Indexes

Derwent Innovations Index. ISI. How To Use
A resource for patent literature from 40 patent issuing authorities. Uses the ISI search interface and links forward in time to citing patents and backwards in time to cited patents. Coverage for some patents begins in 1963.

esp@cenet (Searchable Worldwide Patents Database) EPO, 1920-
Free worldwide patent information with full-text patents from the European Patent Office.

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
Website for the USPTO. Information on patenting an idea, doing a patent search, and locating a 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. Keeping these limitations in mind, there are some excellent information resources available from the open web, especially those associated with government agencies and universities. See how to evaluate web resources.

General Web Search Engines

Google How To Use
A top ranked web search engine, with good relevancy. Uses tabs at the top of the search box. The tab titled Groups (a Usenet news database) will retrieve the category sci. with .bio as a subcategory. The Directory tab is a Page Rank version of the Open Directory and includes a category for Science with Biology as a subcategory. There is also a tab for Images and News.

Alltheweb.com How To Use
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 How To Use
A comprehensive science-specific search engine. Locates peer-reviewed articles.

Biology Web Search Engines

BioBot. NBII.
Biological search engine for the internet.

Biology Browser. BIOSIS.

National Environmental Data Index (NEDI)
Provides full-text search of environmental information compiled by agencies of the federal government.


Websites     [back to top]

Tufts University Biology Department
Information on education programs, faculty and research, admissions, resources, and seminars.

Communication Forums

BIOSCI
A set of electronic communication forums for biological scientists worldwide. Hosted at the U.K. Medical Research Council's Human Genome Mapping Project Resource Center.

Databases

All Species Toolkit Search Engine. All Species Foundation.
Index to animal & plant species, common names, and synonyms from twelve different databases.

Expert Center for Taxonomic Identification (ETI)
ETI is a non-profit foundation dedicated to improve on a global scale the quantity, quality and accessibility of taxonomic information, based on an initiative of UNESCO.

FishBase
Species, synonyms, common names, pictures and references is the focus of this database. Biodiversity maps and country data are also included.

Integrated Taxonomic Information System
Database of species names and their hierarchical classification.

Interactive Fly
Guide to Drosophila genes and their role in development.

Museum of Comparative Zoology. Harvard University.

MCZ Bird Collection
Index to the Museum of Comparative Zoology Department of Ornithology Bird Collection.

MCZ Entomology Primary Type Specimen Database
This online database contains records for primary types in the entomology collection of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, the database includes high resolution images of the type specimens.

MCZ Invertebrate Collection
Searchable database for the Museum of Comparative Zoology Invertebrate Collection.

Species 2000 Catalog of Life
Species 2000 has the objective of enumerating all known species of organisms on Earth as the baseline dataset for studies of global biodiversity. The Dynamic Checklist provides real time access to the Species 2000 array of taxonomic databases.

Tree of Life
The Tree of Life is a collaborative web project, produced by biologists from around the world. On more than 2600 webpages, the Tree of Life provides information about the diversity of organisms on Earth, their history, and characteristics.

University of Michigan Museum of Zoology's Animal Diversity Web
Animal natural history, distribution, classification and conservation biology is the content of this database.

Evolution

Biology Links - Evolution. Harvard University.
A list of web resources including sites on general and molecular evolution.

Charles Darwin. Online Literature Library - Knowledge Matters.
Online text of Voyage of the Beagle, Origin of Species, and Descent of Man are the classic title included in this site.

The Darwin-Wallace 1858 Evolution Paper
A paper on the history and background pertaining to the publication of the joint paper by Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace that first outlined the hypothesis of natural selection.

National Center for Science Education
A nonprofit membership organization working to defend the teaching of evolution. Site includes web links on evolution and current news summaries on debates occurring nationwide.

Gateways & Portals (Web libraries)

Biodiversity and Biological Collections
Metadata web server listing internet resource links on a variety of topics dealing with biodiversity and biology. Site is currently under construction.

Biology Servers on the Web. ABIM.
A reference page to help biologists find information available from W3 servers, includes: bibliographies, databases, online tools and tutorials.

Biota.org - The Digital Biology Project
Group that promotes and assists in the engineering of complete, biologically inspired, synthetic ecosystems and organisms.

Model Organisms - The WWW Virtual Library
A catalog of internet resources relating to biological model organisms.

Yahoo! Biology

Yahoo! Science: Animal Behavior

Government Resources

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services:

Bioethics Resources on the Web. National Institutes of Health.
An annotated list of websites related to bioethics issues such as stem cell research, genetic testing, access to health care, and use of animals in research.

National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII)
NBII is a program to provide access to data and information on the nation's biological resources. Some topics covered are: biodiversity, invasive species, systematics, and biological metadata. Has extensive resource links to other websites of interest arranged by topic.

National Center for Research Resources. NIH.
Organization charged with the task of providing the critical research resources and research tools that underpin all areas of scientific inquiry supported by NIH.

U.S. Department of the Interior:

Biological Resources. U.S. Geological Survey.
Mission, programs, and publications of USGS Biological Resources Division.

Images/Pictures

BIODIDAC - A Bank of Digital Resources for Teaching Biology. University of Ottawa.
Contains over 6000 images (diagrams and photos) designed for biology teachers. Can search by grouping: histology, zoology, or botany; by keyword; or by taxon.

BIOSIS Resource Guide - Images and Sound
List of links to images and sounds of the world's plants, animals, and insects.

Environmental Image Collection. CDL.
From the Donald R. Dickey Collections at UCLA digitized photographs of birds, mammals and geographic environment.

Nanoworld Image Gallery
Searchable/browsable database of electron microscope images of various subjects.

News

The Scientist
An international science news magazine that reports on and analyzes the issues and events that impact the life sciences.

Research Tools

BioJava.org
An open-source project dedicated to providing Java tools for processing biological data.

Biota - The Biodiversity Database Manager
Biological data and collections management software that helps manage specimen-based biodiversity and collections data by providing an easy-to-use graphical interface to a fully relational database structure. Created by Robert Colwell, University of Connecticut.

Societies & Associations

American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS)
A non-profit scientific organization to advance research and education in the biological sciences.

Animal Behavior Society
ABS focus is to promote and encourage the biological study of animal behavior.

Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour
ASAB was founded in 1936 to promote the study of animal behavior.

Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology
A coalition of independent member societies that serve the interests of biomedical and life scientists, particularly those related to public policy issues.

Society for Conservation Biology
An international professional organization dedicated to promoting the scientific study of the phenomena that affect the maintenance, loss, and restoration of biological diversity.

The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology
Focus of the society is to integrate the many fields of specialization in the broad field of biology. The SICB is organized around eleven divisions, each relevant to a major segment of biology

The Society for Mathematical Biology
A forum for discussion of research in biology, mathematical-biology, and mathematics applied to or motivated by biology.

The Society of Systematic Biologists
Promotes the advancement of the science of systematic biology in all its aspects of theory, principles, methodology, and practice, for both living and fossil organisms.

Study & Teaching Resources

Beyond Bio 101: The Transformation of Undergraduate Biology Education
Online publication discusses the current status of undergraduate biology education in the United States. Sponsored by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a non-profit medical research organization that provides grants for biological sciences education.

The Biology Project. University of Arizona.
Program aimed at improving the teaching of biology at the undergraduate level by offering free access to high quality web-based learning materials.

BioTech. University of Texas, Austin.
A website for biology/chemistry educational resource and research tools.

Coalition for Education in the Life Sciences (CELS)
A national coalition of professional societies in the biological sciences that have joined together to improve undergraduate education in the life sciences. Website has links to educational resources and other professional organizations.

Guide to the Animal Kingdom for Students and Educators. BIOSIS.
A simplified classification scheme for the whole animal kingdom giving a hierarchical listing of the major groups of animals, short notes, representative taxa, and links to sites with further information.

Suppliers

American Type Culture Collection
A global nonprofit bioresource center that provides biological products, technical services, and educational programs to private industry, government, and academic organizations.

BioSpace. BioSpace.
Commercial site that provides news, information products and services for industry research and development.

BioSupplyNet
Commercial site with links to biomedical research supplies and services.

Fisher Scientific
Commercial manufacturer and distributor of scientific instruments, equipment, supplies, workstations and chemicals.

SciQuest
Commercial provider of technology, services and domain expertise for procurement and materials management in support of the life sciences, higher education and industrial research markets.


Contact a Librarian     [back to top]

Miriam Allman. Contact for questions about library collections.
Regina Raboin. Contact for reference questions and instruction requests.

   
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