Journal Database Descriptions and Guides

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Academic Search Elite
1984- (updated daily)
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Publisher: EBSCO Publishing
Unlimited simultaneous users
List of journals covered
  • Broad, general index that covers every academic discipline
  • Indexes more than 3,500 journals and magazines
  • Licensed by BadgerLink/Department of Public Instruction for use by all Wisconsin residents.

ABI/INFORM
1971- (updated daily)
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Publisher: ProQuest Information and Learning
  • Covers business and consumer topics such as management techniques, corporate strategies, marketing, and business trends and conditions.
  • Indexes more than 2,700 scholarly and trade business periodicals and other business publications such as case studies, business profiles (DataMoniter Reports) and business dissertations.
  • Includes popular titles such as Forbes, Fortune, and Business Week
  • Retrospective coverage of key business journals, some back to 1923.

Agricola
1970 - (updated quarterly)
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Publisher: SilverPlatter
Creator: U S National Agriculture Library
12 Simultaneous users
List of Journals Indexed (Jan 1, 2007)
Scope Change (Jan 1, 2007)
Cab Vs Agricola

  • Covers all aspects of agriculture and allied disciplines, including animal and veterinary sciences, entomology, plant sciences, forestry, aquaculture and fisheries, farming and farming systems, agircultural economics and earth and environmental sciences.
  • In the past, indexed over 600 periodicals, as well as USDA and state experiment station and extension publications, and selected books with an emphasis on research done in North America.
  • Recently, the number of periodicals covered has been reduced dramatically. For more current coverage of agriculture literature, try CAB Abstracts.

Aquatic Sciences & Fisheries Abstracts
1978- (updated monthly)
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Publisher: Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA)
Unlimited simultaneous users
  • Covers the major aspects of the aquatic environment, including aquaculture, limnology, oceanography and marine environments, environmental quality, and water pollution.
  • Indexes more than 5,000 journals, reports, conference proceedings, and books

Art Full Text
1984- (updated monthly)
Art Index Retrospective
1929-1984
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Publisher: HW Wilson
12 simultaneous users
List of journals covered

  • Covers archaeology, architecture, art history, crafts, decorative arts, graphic arts, industrial and interior design, landscape architecture, museology, and film, video and photography.
  • Indexes more than 450 key English and foreign-language periodicals, yearbooks, and museum bulletins.
  • Indexes articles, bibliographies, notices of competitions and awards, reports of conferences and exhibitions, book and film reviews, and reproductions.

Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals
1930- (updated weekly)
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Publisher: Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA)
Creator: Getty Research Institute
Unlimited simultaneous users
  • Covers architecture and design from such diverse fields as archaeology, decorative arts, interior design, landscape architecture, city planning, and housing.
  • Includes scholarly and popular literature, publications of professional associations, American state and regional periodicals, and the major serials on architecture and design of Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Australia.
  • Includes selective coverage back to 1741.

Biological Abstracts
1969- (updated quarterly)
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Publisher: ISI (Institute for Scientific Information). Thomson Corp.
Creator: Biological Abstracts, Inc. (BIOSIS)
  • Covers anatomy, bacteriology, behavioral sciences, bioengineering, biotechnology, cell biology, clinical medicine, genetics, immunology, microbiology, nutrition, parasitology, pathology, pharmacology, physiology, radiation and systematic biology, toxicology, virology, and zoology.
  • Indexes more than 5,000 international journals are monitored each year with over 6 million records included.

Biotechnology & Bioengineering Abstracts
1982- (updated monthly)
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Publisher: Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA)
Unlimited simultaneous users
  • Covers all areas of biotechnology and bioengineering including research, applications, regulatory developments and new patents. It surveys biotechnological aspects of medicine, pharmacy, agriculture, the environment and marine biology.
  • Indexes more than 500 journal titles

Biotechnology Abstracts (Derwent)
1982- (updated quarterly)
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Publisher: SilverPlatter
Creator: Derwent Information Ltd.
5 Simultaneous users
  • Covers all aspects of biotechnology, from genetic manipulation through biochemical engineering and fermentation to downstream processing and patents. All industrial uses of microorganisms, enzymes and cell culture are covered, as well as plant micropropagation.

CAB Abstracts
1910- (updated quarterly)
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Publisher: SilverPlatter
Creator: CABI Publishing (formerly Commonwealth Agricultural Bureau)
4 Simultaneous users
Cab Vs. Agricola
  • Covers agriculture, agricultural economics, animal breeding and disease, biotechnology, dairy science, entomology, forestry, horticulture, microbiology, nutrition, plant breeding and pathology, rural sociology, soil science, veterinary science, and weeds.
  • Indexes more than 6,000 academic journals and 3,500 other documents, including other serials, books, technical reports, theses, symposium, patents, conference proceedings, and annual reports.
  • International coverage from over 140 countries, including research from developing countries. Includes more recent literature than Agricola as of 2006.
  • Specially designed controlled vocabulary – CAB Thesaurus

Communication & Mass Media Complete (CMMC)
Dates vary (updated weekly)
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Publisher: EBSCO
List of titles covered
Unlimited simultaneous users
  • Covers communication and mass media topics
  • Incorporates CommSearch (formerly produced by the National Communication Association) and Mass Media Articles Index (formerly produced by Penn State) and other communications journals
  • Indexes more than 300 journals (cover-to-cover) and another 200 selectively
  • Includes Communication Thesaurus
  • Licensed by BadgerLink/Department of Public Instruction for use by all Wisconsin residents.

Communication Abstracts
1977- (update Bimonthly)
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Publisher: Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA)
Unlimited simultaneous users
  • Covers communication literature including topics such as general and mass communication; advertising; marketing; broadcasting; communication theory; interpersonal, intrapersonal, small group, and organizational communication; journalism; public opinion; public relations; radio; speech; and television. Also includes literature in other disciplines relevant to communication researchers.
  • Indexes more than 160 journals plus reports, papers, and books from a variety of publishers, research institutions, and information sources from throughout the world.

Design and Applied Arts Index
1973- (updated monthly)
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Publisher: Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA)
Unlimited simultaneous users
  • Covers all areas of design and craft, including industrial design, interior design, environmental design, computer-aided design, furniture design, ceramics, jewellery, textile design, graphic design, book design, photography, advertising, exhibition design, theatre design, ergonomics, and design and craft theory.
  • Indexes more than 500 design and craft journals and newspapers, including articles; news items; conference and seminar reports; reviews; obituary notices, and illustrations.
  • In addition, it includes data on more than 50,000 designers, craftspeople, studios, workshops, firms, etc.

EconLit
1969- (updated monthly)
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Publisher: Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA)
Creator: American Economic Association
Unlimited simultaneous users
  • Covers a wide range of economics-related literature including areas such as agricultural economics, country studies, economic development, international economics, macro- and microeconomics, urban and rural economics.
  • Indexes more than 300 scholarly English language periodicals, books and dissertations.

Education Full Text
1983- (updated monthly)
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Publisher: HW Wilson
12 simultaneous users
  • Covers all levels of education literature (preschool, elementary, secondary, higher, adult & vocational) including areas such as continuing education, distance education, educational technology, instructional media, language arts, literacy standards, multicultural/ethnic education, parent-teacher relations, school administration, special education, student counseling, teacher education, teacher evaluation, and teaching methods.
  • Indexes more than 400 English-language periodicals, yearbooks, and selected monographic series. Does not include ERIC publications.

Environmental Sciences & Pollution Management
1967 - (updated monthly)
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Publisher: Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA)
Unlimited simultaneous users
  • Covers all areas of air, land, water, and noise pollution as well as basic science areas of bacteriology, ecology, toxicology, environmental engineering, environmental biotechnology, waste management, and water resources.
  • Indexes more than 1,000 primary journal literature titles in major scientific languages are covered as well as trade literature, patents, conference proceedings, chapters in books, and reports.

ERIC - Educational Resources Information Center
1966- (updated quarterly)
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Publisher: EBSCO
Creator: U.S. Department of Education, Educational Resources Information Center
Unlimited simultaneous users
  • Covers all aspects of education and related fields, including child development, classroom techniques, computer education, counseling and testing, administration, higher education, library science, and vocational and adult education.
  • Indexes more than 980 journals plus educational reports, project descriptions, curriculum guides, and dissertations.
  • The complete texts of 90% of the document literature (ED numbers) are available in PDF format using the EDRS DOCUMENT LINK. They are also on microfiche at the UW Madison CIMC (Center for Instructional Materials and Computing).
  • Licensed by BadgerLink/Department of Public Instruction for use by all Wisconsin residents.

Family & Society Studies Worldwide
1970- (updated quarterly)
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Publisher: NISC/BiblioLine
Creator: National Council on Family Relations
  • Covers the educational, medical, psychological and sociological aspects of family literature.
  • Indexes more than 1800 journals, books, chapters, newsletters, government documents, and dissertations.
  • As of summer 2006, FAMILY (Australian Family & Society Abstracts) is no longer included in this resource.

FSTA (Food Science & Technology Abstracts)
1969- (updated annually)
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Publisher: SilverPlatter
Creator: International Food Information Service (IFIS)
4 Simultaneous users
  • Covers beverages, cocoa and chocolate, commodity technology, dairy products, dietetic foods, fats and oils, fermentation technology, fish, flour and bakery products, food additives and engineering, food hygiene, food laws, meat and poultry, sugars, and toxicology.
  • Indexes more than 1,800 journals, books, theses, conference proceedings, reviews, standards, legislation, and patents.

GEOBASE
1980- (updated twice monthly)
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Publisher: OCLC / FirstSearch
4 simultaneous users
  • Covers human and physical geography, cartography, geographic information systems (GIS), geomorphology, climatology, hydrology, geology and ecology. The interdisciplinary coverage makes it an ideal tool for researching environmental issues.
  • It provides comprehensive bibliographic references to more than 2,000 primary journals, books, monographs, reports, conference proceedings and theses and is international in scope.

Google Scholar
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Publisher: Google
  • Covers scholarly literature from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities.
  • Includes peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all areas of research.
  • To activate Find It links off campus, click on Scholar Preferences. In the Library Links box, type Wisconsin. Select University of Wisconsin - Madison (Find It at UW Madison). Click on Save Preferences (bottom of page).

JSTOR
Dates Vary (updated irregularly)
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Publisher: JSTOR
Unlimited simultaneous users
  • Covers the fields of African-American studies, anthropology, architecture, Asian studies, biological sciences, botany, ecology, economics, education, film, finance, folklore, history, language, literature, mathematics, middle east studies, music, philosophy, political science, population/demography, religion, sociology, and statistics.
  • Provides access to more than 500 full-text journal titles including graphs, photographs and other images.
  • Coverage begins with volume one of each title and continues to within 3 to 5 years of the most current issue, depending on the title. The "moving wall" represents the time period between the last issue available in JSTOR and the most recently published issue of a journal; it is specified by publishers in their license agreements with JSTOR.
  • JSTOR is an online archive of full text scholarly publications. UW-Madison Libraries have acquired the following JSTOR collections : Arts & Sciences I; Arts & Sciences II; Arts & Sciences III, Business; Ecology & Botany; General Science; Language & Literature; Music.

Journal Citation Reports (JCR)
1997- (updated annually)
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Publisher: ISI (Institute for Scientific Information). Thomson Corp.
  • Provides a means of determining the relative importance of scholarly and technical journals within their subject disciplines by using a variety of citation and article counts attributed to each journal.
  • Journals are evaluated and ranked according to their impact factor (how often the journal is cited), immediacy index (how quickly an article is cited), and other criteria. This results in one method for identifying a subject's core journals.

Knovel Engineering & Scientific Online References
Dates vary (updated daily)
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Knovel Features
Publisher: Knovel Corp.
  • Covers areas such as chemistry, chemical engineering, environmental engineering, concrete, asphalt, mechanical engineering, semiconductors, electronics, and surface engineering.
  • Includes the content of more than 200 leading engineering reference handbooks, databases, and conference proceedings including Perry's Chemical Engineers' Handbook, Lange's Handbook of Chemistry, Marks' Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers, Machinery's Handbook, and the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics.
  • It is interactive and cross-searchable. Users can manipulate and extract information (for example, text, live tables, graphs, images, databases) to suit their needs. Data searching retrieves tables, graphs, and equations that can be further manipulated in spreadsheets and with java applets. Many titles have hyperlinked indexes.

Lexis/Nexis
Late 1980s; Dates vary. (Updated daily)
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Publisher: LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.
  • Covers international and U.S. newspapers, ethnic and regional news sources, magazines, wire services, newsletters, trade journals, company and industry analyst reports, and broadcast transcripts. See also ProQuest Newspapers.
  • Indexes approximately 5,000 sources including the New York Times, June 1980 -to date; The Wisconsin State Journal, 1992-to date; The Capital Times, 1992-to date; and The Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel, September 1995-to date.
  • Years of coverage vary, but many sources begin with the late 1980's or early 1990's. Advertisements, obituaries, graphics, and non-local (syndicated) features are typically not included.

Pre-1970 Article Indexes and Databases

  • Selected list of print agriculture indexes available for searching literature published prior to 1970. Includes information about any subsequent electronic versions.
  • Also includes a link to electronic databases with coverage prior to 1970 in all subject areas.

Proquest Digital Dissertations
1861-to date (updated daily)
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Publisher: ProQuest Information and Learning
Unlimited simultaneous users
  • Covers doctoral dissertations in all subject areas completed at U.S. accredited institutions. Some masters theses and foreign language dissertations are also included.
  • Full text (PDF files) of UW-Madison dissertations as well as CIC (Committee on Institutional Cooperation) university dissertations from 1997 forward are available to UW-Madison students, faculty, and staff free of charge.
  • Most dissertations from 1997 forward include 24-page previews but are not full text. Citations for dissertations published from 1980 forward and master's theses from 1988 forward include abstracts only.
  • Orders for complete dissertations may be placed online, but check MadCat first to see if they are owned on campus. Free interlibrary loan may also be a possibility.

Proquest Newspapers
Late 1980s; Dates Vary (updated daily)
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Publisher: ProQuest Information and Learning
Unlimited simultaneous users
  • Covers national, international, and Wisconsin newspapers, plus other news sources and news wires.
  • Indexes more than 500 sources including The Wall Street Journal and New York Times. The Wisconsin Newstand feature includes selected coverage of major Wisconsin newspapers.
  • Years of coverage vary but most national newspapers are indexed since 1989, and have full text back to 1995. Most Wisconsin titles begin with the early 1990's.
  • This resource is licensed by BadgerLink/Department of Public Instruction for use by all Wisconsin residents.

ProQuest Research Library
1988- (updated daily)
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Publisher: ProQuest Information and Learning
Unlimited simultaneous users
  • Broad, general index that covers the arts, business, education, health, humanities, psychology, sciences, and the social sciences.
  • Indexes more than 2,000 sources including a mix of general interest periodicals and academic journals.
  • Dates vary, but many full-text journals go back to 1988. Some articles contain images, including charts, photos, cartoons, and other illustrations.

PsycINFO (Psychological Abstracts)
1872- (updated weekly)
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Publisher: EBSCO
Creator: American Psychological Association (APA)
  • Covers all aspects of the field of psychology as well as the psychological aspects of related disciplines such as medicine, psychiatry, nursing, sociology, education, pharmacology, physiology, linguistics, anthropology, business and law.
  • Indexes more than 1,700 periodicals in over 35 languages and includes journal articles, book chapters, books, dissertations and technical reports

PubMed
1950- (updated daily)
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Publisher: U S National Library of Medicine (NLM), NCBI National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Institutes of Health
Unlimited simultaneous users
  • Covers the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, pharmacy, allied health, health care systems, and pre-clinical sciences
  • Indexes nearly 4,500 journals
  • Also provides access and links to the integrated molecular biology databases maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). These databases contain DNA and protein sequences, 3-D protein structure data, population study data sets, and assemblies of complete genomes in an integrated system.
  • Additional NLM bibliographic databases, such as AIDSLINE, are being added to PubMed. PubMed includes "Old Medline." Old Medline covers 1950-1965

Public Affairs Information Service (PAIS)
1972- (updated quarterly)
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Publisher: SilverPlatter
Creator: OCLC Public Affairs Information Service
4 Simultaneous users
  • Covers public policy, social policy, and the social sciences in general.
  • Indexes more than 900 journals; books; government documents; statistical compilations; committee reports; directories; serials; reports of public, intergovernmental, and private organizations; and most other forms of printed literature from all over the world.

Readers' Guide Full Text
1983- (updated monthly)
Readers' Guide Retrospective
1890-1983
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Publisher: HW Wilson
12 simultaneous users
  • Covers news and current events in politics, business, science, education, religion, the arts, foreign affairs, sports and hobbies, fashion, food and cooking, and health and nutrition.
  • Indexes more than 240 general interest periodicals, including the New York Times including coverage of speeches, obituaries, recipes, product evaluations, do-it-yourself works, reviews, and original works of fiction.

Science Direct
1995 - (updates vary)
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Publisher: Reed Elsevier
  • Covers a subset of Elsevier ejournals in science, technology and medicine.
  • Includes more than 700 high-use, high-demand titles.

SciFinder Scholar
1907- (updated weekly)
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Publisher: Chemical Abstracts Service/Scifinder Scholar
  • Covers all areas of pure and applied chemistry including biochemistry, medicinal chemistry and chemical engineering.
  • Indexes more than 8,000 journals as well as patents, conference proceedings, government research reports, books and dissertations.
  • Also incorporates two substance oriented databases: (1) a database containing more than 20 million specificsubstances; (2) a database of more than 5 million chemical reactions dating from 1974.
  • Many different kinds searches are possible: author, natural language, chemical structure (partial or exact), name, formula, chemical reactant or product.
  • The chemical substance record contains calculated property data for many substances, as well as links to two databases providing information on commercial availability (ChemCats) and domestic and international regulatory information (ChemList).
  • Note! The years 1907-1966 are not fully indexed. Only author and text-string searches of the titles and abstracts are possible for this period.

SocINDEX
1895- (updated monthly)
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Publisher: EBSCO
Creator: EBSCO
Unlimited simultaneous users
  • Covers all sub-disciplines of sociology including criminology & criminal justice, demography, ethnic & racial studies, gender studies, marriage & family, political sociology, religion, rural & urban sociology, social development, social psychology, social structure, social work, socio-cultural anthropology, sociological history, sociological research, sociological theory, substance abuse & other addictions, violence and many others.
  • Indexes about 400 journals "core coverage" sociology journals dating back to 1908 and 150 "priority coverage" journals as well as books and conference papers.
  • Also includes Author Profiles covering the most prolific, most cited, and most frequently searched for authors in the database.
Sociological Abstracts
1952- (updated monthly)
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Publisher: Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA)
Creator: Sociological Abstracts, Inc.
Unlimited simultaneous users
  • Covers international literature in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences.
  • Indexes over 1,800 journals and also includes books, book chapters, dissertations, and conference papers.

TropAg & Rural
1975 - (updated semiannually)
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Publisher: SilverPlatter
Creator: United States National Agricultural Library
1 Simultaneous user
  • Covers international agricultural economics, agroforestry, crop processing and storage, environmental issues, rural development, farming systems, fertilizer, postharvest cooperation, and soil science.
  • Indexes 6,000 English and foreign language journals, books, reports, theses, conference proceedings and extension pamphlets each year.

Water Resources Abstracts
1967- (updated quarterly)
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Publisher: Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA)
Unlimited simultaneous users
  • Covers literature on water-related topics covering the characteristics, conservation, control, pollution, treatment, use and management of water resources.
  • Indexes journals, books, conference proceedings, and technical reports in the physical and life sciences, as well as from engineering, legal and government publications.

Web of Knowledge (formerly: Web of Science)
Coverage:
Arts & Humanities Citation Index 1982 -
Science Citation Index 1970 -
Social Sciences Citation Index 1982 -
QuickGuide
Video: Cited Reference Searching
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Publisher: ISI (Institute for Scientific Information). Thomson Corp.
Unlimited simultaneous users
  • Covers all academic subject areas.
  • Contains three databases: Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index which may be searced seperately or in combination.
  • It indexes more than 8,000 peer-reviewed journals. Every item of significance is listed: articles, reviews, letters, notes, corrections, and editorials.
  • UNIQUE to this database is cited reference searching. Allows searching by cited authors, to find articles sharing one or more cited reference. Can also search by institution.
  • For older years, see:
    Arts & Humanities Citation Index (1980-1989)
    Social Sciences Citation Index (1981-1985)

Wildlife & Ecology Studies Worldwide
1935-to date (updated quarterly)
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Publisher: NISC/BiblioLine
  • Covers all aspects of wildlife and wildlife management including animal behavior, conservation, disease, genetics, habitats, management techniques, parasites, pesticides, propagation, and toxicology.
  • Indexes English language journals, monographs, proceedings of conferences and symposia, government reports, grey literature, books, theses, dissertations, field studies, and surveys from U.S. state agencies.

Zoological Record
1978- (updated quarterly)
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Publisher: ISI (Institute for Scientific Information). Thomson Corp.
Creator: Biological Abstracts, Inc. (BIOSIS)
  • Covers all major areas of zoology , including behavior, ecology, evolution, habitat, nutrition, parasitology, reproduction, taxonomy, and zoogeography.
  • Indexes approximately 6000 international journals, review annuals, monographs, meeting proceedings, books, and reports.
  • Emphasis is on systematic/taxonomic information on various animal groups, including protozoa, nematoda, pisces, reptilia, aves, and mammalia.
  • There are no abstracts.