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.
- 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.
- Knovel eBook Collection This link opens in a new window
As well as all aspects of engineering, Knovel is useful for biotechnology, computing, food science, marine technology, molecular biology and chemistry. Subjects covered include technical reference books. There are Interactive graphs and tables,material and substance properties data and interactive equations. The Data Search tool can be used to build queries around different materials or substances.
- 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.
- TechRxivTechRxiv (pronounced "tech archive") is an open, moderated preprint server for unpublished research in electrical engineering, computer science, and related technology.
- The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data SystemThe SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) is a Digital Library portal for researchers in Astronomy and Physics, operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO)
eJournal collections, whilst not as comprehensive as databases, will normally give you subject focused results and often include the full text. Key Physics eJournal collections include:
- Science Direct This link opens in a new windowScienceDirect provides full text-access to journal articles published by Elsevier.
- 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.
- Institute of Physics (IOP) Journals This link opens in a new windowFull-text access to journals on subjects such as astronomy, particle & nuclear physics, medical physics & biophysics, quantum science and more.
- arXiv This link opens in a new windowAn open access archive for nearly 2.4 million scholarly articles in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics. Not peer-reviewed.
All databases should have a help section with tips and tricks on how to get the best out of using them, so do make yourself familiar with them. You also may find the following helpful:
- Compendex (Ei Engineering Village) LibGuideA guide for how to get started, search and personalise Engineering Village.
- IEEE Video TutorialsShort videos providing tips and techniques to help with your research.
- Knovel LibGuideResources and tools to get started with—and the get the most out of—Knovel.
- SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System FAQsADS Frequently Asked Questions
- ScienceDirect LibGuideHelp and support on how to access and use Science direct
- Scopus LibGuideHelp and support on how to access and use Scopus.
- Web of Science helpVideo tutorials and guides.
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.
- 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).
- 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.
Support and services
Explore further tools, guides and support from the Library.
