Getting Started: Library Tools for Postdoctoral Scholars
This guide lists library resources of importance for postdoctoral researchers. To access licensed library resources from off-campus, please use the library VPN. Your Researcher Services librarians are happy to help if you have questions or need additional assistance.
Use this guide to find relevant literature for your postdoctoral research as well as resources from other disciplines. This guide lists tools for locating literature across a range of topics. Below are licensed databases to get you started in locating literature.
PLEASE NOTE:
Comprehensive literature searching in any discipline requires consulting a variety of resources which are best found by reviewing the Research Guides by subject section. These guides provide the most extensive listing of guides by specific disciplines and provide the most detailed listing of licensed disciplinary library resources.
Key databases
Databases listed below are the most highly-used databases from UC Davis.
For additional databases, please review your most appropriate subject or specialized course guide(s).
AUTOMATED SEARCHES & EMAIL UPDATES: All databases licensed by the UC Davis Library or by the UC Libraries (via California Digital Library - CDL) will have a feature to save searches and set up an email alert (often called current awareness or auto alert or SDI or update) which sends the latest references matching your saved searches to your email. Check the more… section of your database listing to learn how to set this up for your specific database or check the database guide.
How to Choose a Database
In deciding which database(s) to use, it is helpful to note:
- Who: Who is authoring these publications? Are these scholarly, popular, or industry sources?
- What: What can I find in the database? (e.g. articles, conference proceedings, data)
- When: When does coverage begin? How well is historical literature covered? Does it include articles published in the last year?
- Where: What is the geographical scope of the coverage? Does that match your research interest?
Agricultural & Environmental Sciences
- CAB Abstracts (Ovid) This link opens in a new window
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Provides citations and abstracts to the international agricultural literature, including veterinary medicine, human and animal nutrition, forestry, rural development, as well as other related topics such as tourism and human ecology. Covers over 11,000 journals and conference proceedings and selected books in agriculture. Produced by CAB (Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux) International (CABI) with more than 10 million records. HISTORICAL SCOPE: Archive abstracts added in August 2005 go back to 1910 with 1,860,000 additional records. CAB DATABASE PDFs: As of January 2009, hard-to-find literature may be available as CAB Database PDFs (so noted below the UC-eLinks button). These CABI Full Text items give users automatic access to over 350,000 journal articles, conference papers and reports 80 percent of which are not available electronically anywhere else. NOTE: the default UCD Search Type is set to Advanced Ovid Search.
[Coverage: 1910-present] - Agricultural & Environmental Science Database This link opens in a new window
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This database covers environmental science topics from disciplines such as atmospheric science, biology, biotechnology, ecology, engineering, and microbiology. It also covers agricultural research including agricultural economics, animal and veterinary sciences, aquaculture and fisheries, farming and farming systems, food and human nutrition, forestry, and plant sciences. It includes Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) and Digests and all the records from the National Agricultural Library's AGRICOLA database.
[Coverage: 1960-present] - Agricola This link opens in a new window
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Published by the National Agricultural Library, the Agricola database describes publications and resources encompassing all aspects of agriculture and allied disciplines including: animal science; veterinary science; entomology; plant science; forestry; aquaculture and fisheries; farming, farming systems and crops; agricultural economics; extension and education; food and human nutrition; and earth sciences and environmental sciences. The Bibliography of Agriculture is the print index to the agricultural literature going back to 1942 located on the Shields Library, Third Floor, at call number Z 5071 .U63. NOTE: default UCD Search Type set to Advanced Ovid Search. IMPORTANT: The largest and most comprehensive agricultural literature database is CAB Abstracts.
[Coverage: 1970-present]
Biological Sciences
- BIOSIS Previews This link opens in a new windowBIOSIS Previews is a database for researching the biological sciences literature. Designed by biologists for keeping up with the literature across pure and applied life sciences including agriculture and medicine. Excellent features for searching by taxonomic categories and broad concept codes (subject categories). More than 27 million records in all life science areas, including agriculture, biochemistry, biomedicine, biotechnology, ecology, environmental biology, genetics, microbiology, plant biology, veterinary medicine & pharmacology, and zoology. Indexes over 6,000 journals, serials, books and book chapters, conference proceedings and patents.
[Coverage: 1926-present] - Zoological Record This link opens in a new windowPrimary database for wildlife researchers. The oldest continuing database of animal biology - designed to include all records of new species information and naming. Comprehensive coverage of zoology; including behavior, conservation and environmental science, ecology, evolution, genetics, habitat, marine and freshwater biology, nutrition, parasitology and disease, reproduction, taxonomy and systematics, veterinary studies, zoogeography and fossil records. Especially strong in new species reports and field studies.
[Coverage: 1864-Present]
Engineering
- Compendex This link opens in a new windowCompendex is the broadest and most complete engineering literature database available in the world with over 22 million indexed records from 77 countries across 190 engineering disciplines.
[Coverage: 1884-present] - INSPEC This link opens in a new windowInspec was created by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), and is one of the world's most definitive bibliographic scientific engineering research databases, containing over 15 million abstracts and indexing records. Inspec is on the Engineering Village platform and can be searched together with Ei Compendex. By searching both engineering research databases together, engineers gain access to the broadest engineering source available with a single database search experience.
[Coverage: 1898-present]
Medical Sciences
- PubMed for UC Davis This link opens in a new windowPubMed for UC Davis offers users vastly more full-text articles than does the public version of Pubmed.gov. Search results in the UCD version display "Get it at UC" buttons providing (with on-campus or VPN connection) access to articles in journals licensed by UC Davis or enabling patrons to request articles that are not immediately available online. PubMed comprises over 30 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. PubMed citations and abstracts include the fields of biomedicine and health, covering portions of the life sciences, behavioral sciences, chemical sciences, and bioengineering. PubMed also provides access to additional relevant web sites and links to the other NCBI molecular biology resources. PubMed is a free resource that is developed and maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), located at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
[Coverage: 1902-present] - Embase This link opens in a new window
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Embase is a biomedical and pharmacological database containing bibliographic records with citations, abstracts and indexing derived from biomedical articles in peer reviewed journals, and is especially strong in its coverage of drug and pharmaceutical research and conference abstracts.Embase contains over 22 million records spanning 1974-present, with over 1 million records added annually. Each record contains the full bibliographic citation, indexing terms, and codes; and 80% of all citations in Embase include author-written abstracts. The Embase journal collection is international with over 7,500 active peer-reviewed journals more than 90 countries. All MEDLINE records produced by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) are included, as well as over 5 million records not covered in MEDLINE. Broad biomedical scope covering the following areas:
Drug therapy and research, including pharmaceutics, pharmacology and toxicology
Clinical and experimental (human) medicine
Basic biological science relevant to human medicine
Biotechnology and biomedical engineering, including medical devices
Health policy and management, including pharmacoeconomics
Public, occupational and environmental health, including pollution control
Veterinary science, dentistry, and nursing
Psychiatry and mental health, including substance dependence and abuse
Forensic science
Alternative and complementary medicine
[Coverage: 1974-current (for EMBASE records); 1966-current (for MEDLINE records)]
Physical Sciences
- SciFinder [Registration Required] This link opens in a new windowYou must (register for a SciFinder account) before you can use the database (connect to the VPN to access registration page from off-campus).
SciFinder is the most comprehensive bibliographic database for scholarly research in the field of chemistry. It contains over 59 million citations and indexes over 50,000 journals, covering all aspects of chemistry, including chemical aspects of: biology and life sciences, engineering and materials science, food science, geology, medicine, physics, and polymer science. SciFinder also allows searching of chemical substances, chemical reactions, and includes some property data and spectra. It is the online version of Chemical Abstracts.
[Coverage: 1907-present, with selected pre-1907 material]
[Cited Reference Searching: 1996-present, allows you to identify who is citing an article]
NOTE: Commercial use of your University account is strictly prohibited. SciFinder can only be used by UC students, faculty and staff.
- GeoRef This link opens in a new window
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Covers worldwide technical literature on geology, paleontology, and geophysics. Covers the geology of North America from 1666 to present and geology outside of North America from 1933 to present. Subject coverage areas include: areal geology, economic geology, engineering geology, environmental geology, extraterrestrial geology, geochemistry, geochronology, geophysics, hydrogeology and hydrology, marine geology and oceanography, mathematical geology, mineralogy and crystallography, paleontology, petrology, seismology, stratigraphy, structural geology, surficial geology. - MathSciNet This link opens in a new windowMathSciNet is the most comprehensive resource for the international literature of mathematics and statistics. Covers approximately 1800 mathematical journals.
Warning for off-campus users: MathJax causes browsers to report errors when processing the TeX encoded symbols when using the VPN. Use the MathSciNet Preferences tab to turn MathJax off and display the TeX coding or use the proxy server.
[Coverage: 1940-present]
Social Sciences
- APA PsycInfo This link opens in a new window
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APA PsycInfo is published by the American Psychological Associations and provides comprehensive indexing and abstracts of the international psychological literature from the 1800s to the present. Documents indexed include journals, articles, books, dissertations and more. 90% of the 3,000+ titles indexed in APA PsycInfo are peer-reviewed.
[Coverage: 1840-present] - Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new windowSociological Abstracts, and its companion file Social Services Abstracts, cover the international literature of sociology, social work, and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. It provides abstracting and indexing of articles and book reviews drawn from thousands of serials publications, plus books, book chapters, dissertations, conference papers, and working papers.
[Coverage: 1952-present]
Multidisciplinary/Interdisciplinary
- National Technical Reports Library This link opens in a new windowGovernment-sponsored research, development and technical reports with full-text access to digitized reports published by the National Technical Information Service (NTIS), Department of Commerce. Search more than 3 million reports with links to over 800,000 full-text reports.
[Coverage: 1964-present] - ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I This link opens in a new window
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Full-text access to dissertations published after 1977, and citations and abstracts for earlier dissertations and theses. The official offsite dissertations repository for the U.S. Library of Congress. Contains every title in the UMI Dissertation Abstracts database. Access to works by UC campus authors is free for UC affiliates.
[Coverage: 1861-present] - WorldCat This link opens in a new windowOCLC catalog of millions of records for books, journal titles and materials in other formats from approximately 12,000 libraries worldwide.
[Coverage: 1000 A.D.-present] - Web of Science Core Collection This link opens in a new windowWeb of Science Core Collection enables searching of top-cited peer-reviewed content across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities with "cited reference" search capabilities. "It is a curated collection of over 20,000 peer-reviewed, high-quality scholarly journals published worldwide (including Open Access journals) in over 250 science, social sciences, and humanities disciplines. Conference proceedings and book data are also available." There is also access to Journal Citation Reports which provide impact metrics like the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) and Eigenfactor Scoring. Web of Science also has article, author and institutional citation indices. Includes EndNote Basic online citation management tool.
[Coverage: 1900-present] - Scopus This link opens in a new window
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Large interdisciplinary abstract and citation database to academic journal literature, conference proceedings and books with broad coverage across the sciences and social sciences, includes citation tracking tools (Citescore).
[Coverage: full coverage from 1996-present, with selected coverage as far back as 1823]