When looking for academic journal articles you can use the 'everything' search in Library Search or search directly in the databases below, which we’ve selected as being most relevant to your subject area.
Databases are the best place to find academic journal articles as they offer advanced search tools, metric data, and export options for referencing. These databases also often provide access to information types such as conference papers, book chapters, review articles, trade magazines, and more. BrowZine can also be used to explore e-journal titles in your subject.
While most of our collection is now available digitally, some titles may only be accessible in print. You can find these journal titles using an ‘everything except articles’ search in Library Search.
You’ll also find links to essential reading for your programme in your module reading lists on Canvas.
Key Databases and E-journal Collections
Databases will either provide you with the full text of the journal or they will give you the bibliographic details of an article. Where full text is not available, look for the
link and follow this to see if we have the full text available via Library Search.
Subject databases
Subject databases are tailored to particular subject areas. They tend to use precise terminology relating to the subject area, making searches more accurate, and can include subject specific tools and features.
- Aqualine This link opens in a new windowThe Aqualine database provides comprehensive focus on trade, technical and scientific literature concerning all aspects of water resources. Major subjects of coverage include water resources and supplies management, water legislation, water quality, potable water distribution, wastewater collection, water treatment technologies, wastewater and sewage treatment, and ecological and environmental effects of water pollution.
- American Geophysical Union (AGU) This link opens in a new windowAGU publishes 19 highly respected, peer-reviewed scientific journals covering research in the Earth and space sciences; an online news site, eos.org (accompanied by a biweekly magazine); and award-winning books.
- ASCE Proceedings This link opens in a new windowWe have access to 35 journals and the proceedings from the American Society of Civil Engineers. All of these titles are catalogued in Library Search, but contact the Library if you would like a complete list.
- Compendex (Ei Engineering Village) This link opens in a new window
Compendex® in Engineering Village is an interdisciplinary engineering database with over 9 million records referencing 5,000 engineering journals and conference materials dating from 1884. Coverage includes nuclear technology, bioengineering, transportation, chemical and process engineering, light and optical technology, agricultural engineering and food technology, computers and data processing, applied physics, electronics and communications, control, civil, mechanical, materials, petroleum, aerospace and automotive engineering as well as narrower subtopics within all these and other major engineering fields. Numeric data is indexed so results can be filtered within specific data parameters.
- ICE Virtual Library This link opens in a new window
The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) Virtual Library contains every peer-reviewed technical paper published by the Institution of Civil Engineers from 1836. Covers topics such as buildings and structures, coastal and offshore engineering, urban engineering, geology, geotechnical and ground engineering, transportation, and water engineering and wastewater management.
- IEEExplore This link opens in a new window
Delivers full text access to high quality technical literature, journal articles, conference papers and standards, from the IEEE and IET. Covers topics such as electrical engineering, computer science, and electronics.
- Policy Commons: Global Think TanksGlobal Think Tanks is a collection of objective, fact-based research from the world’s leading policy experts, think tanks, IGOs and NGOs. It provides in-depth search and access to some 5 million reports from over 25,000 organisations.
Multidisciplinary databases
Much like Library Search, multidisciplinary databases cover a wide range of topics and are a great place to scope your search, or to use if your topic covers more than one subject area.
- CAB Abstracts This link opens in a new windowCAB Abstracts is a comprehensive agriculture and land use database, containing information from 1910 to date
- Construction Information Service (CIS) This link opens in a new window
This database is particularly useful for architects, civil and structural engineers, building control officers, building services engineers and other professionals in the construction industry. CIS provides fundamental industry information and legislation, as well as additional sector material. The extensive range of full-text documents cover all aspects of the building, engineering, design and construction process in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland.
- Proquest Natural Science This link opens in a new windowThe Natural Science Collection includes key agriculture, aquatic science, biology, dentistry and nutrition databases, with many full text journals.
- Royal Society of Chemistry Journals This link opens in a new windowEJs from the Royal Society of Chemistry
- SAGE Journals Online This link opens in a new windowSearchable database providing full-text access to over 450 Sage titles. We have full-text access to almost all of them from 1999 onwards.
- Science Direct This link opens in a new windowScienceDirect provides full text-access to journal articles published by Elsevier.
- Scopus This link opens in a new windowScopus is a large, multidisciplinary database, which indexes peer reviewed journal articles, books, book chapters, conference proceedings and trade publications. It provides cited reference searching, so you can navigate forward and backward through the literature to uncover all the information relevant to your research and set up citation alerts. Other useful tools include citation overviews, author and affiliation searching, visual analysis of search results and a journal analyser and author identifier tools (if you are interested in publishing work).
- TechRxivTechRxiv (pronounced "tech archive") is an open, moderated preprint server for unpublished research in electrical engineering, computer science, and related technology.
- Web of Science This link opens in a new windowWeb of Science is a multidisciplinary database, which indexes scholarly journal articles, books, book chapters and conference proceedings. It provides cited reference searching, so you can navigate forward and backward through the literature to uncover all the information relevant to your research. Use citation reports to see citation activity and geographical trends and the ‘analyse results’ tool to identify trends and publication patterns.
- SAGE Research Methods CasesA collection of case studies showing the challenges and successes of doing research, written by the researchers themselves. They explain why the researchers chose the methods they did, how they overcame problems in their research and what they might have done differently with hindsight. Cases are peer-reviewed and cover a range of disciplines including social sciences, science, arts, technology and medicine.
Support and services
Explore further tools, guides and support from the Library.
