MATSE 490

Research Resources for Materials Scientists

 

Materials science resources are located in various libraries at Penn State. 

 

Earth and Mineral Sciences Library (105 Deike) – ceramics, metals, and other materials

Engineering Library (325 Hammond) – composites, semiconductors, and engineering properties of materials

Physical Sciences Library (230 Davey Lab) – polymers

Life Sciences Library (4th floor Paterno Library) – biomedical materials, wood, paper

 

Use the CAT, the Libraries catalog of books, journals, etc., to determine the location of specific books or journals. 

 

The primary databases that relate to the materials sciences are:

 

Materials Science – This is actually an aggregate of ten databases relating to materials.  Databases range from the small and specific (Aluminum Industry Abstracts, Ceramic Abstracts, Copper Data Center Database) to large, broad coverage (METADEX/Metals Abstracts, Engineered Materials Abstracts).

 

COMPENDEX – This is an index to the engineering literature and has good coverage of materials.

 

NTIS – This is a database covering technical reports, such as those resulting from government contracts.  The Engineering Library has nearly 1 million reports in their collection from NTIS.  These reports are not listed in the CAT so the NTIS database is the index to use to find them.

 

INSPEC – This database covers electronic materials and physics.

 

Web of Science – Otherwise known as Science Citation Index, this database contains mostly journal articles.  Its strength is the ability to use this database to see who cited whom.  For example, if you wrote an article in 1990, you can use this database to locate articles written since then that cite your 1990 piece.

 

Dissertation Abstracts – This database lists dissertations (and some theses) from universities mostly in North America.  If you are trying to be comprehensive in searching for materials information, this resource should not be overlooked.

 

Patents - There are many patent databases available to you.  The web page provides you with links and descriptions of many of them. 

 

SciFinder Scholar (a.k.a. Chemical Abstracts) – This is the premier database for chemistry.    It is not on the A-Z list because it requires a particular client to be loaded on your PC. This page also has instructions for obtaining access to the online versions of the Beilstein and Gmelin handbooks of chemistry. 

 

Consult the EMS Library’s guide to materials science resources for lists of reference tools and other online resources.

 

Some free resources you can use to keep current in your field:

Scirus - This search engine/web site offers indexes scientific information, some of which is free.

Ingenta – This database provides free access to tables of contents of over 20,000 journals.  Access to the full-text of these articles is provided for a fee.

 

Public Library of Science

PA Power Library – This set of databases, funded via state library funds, is accessible to anyone with a current Pennsylvania public library card.  Included are fulltext newspapers, business journals, and some reference works. 

 

Government databases such as NTIS are available for free searching but won’t give you the full text.  However, if you visit the individual government agency websites, you will find a lot of full text freely available.  For example, try:

-        DOE Information Bridge

-        NASA Technical Reports Server

Another option is to search the Web using Google or a government search engine such as FirstGov.

 

 Career information is available from Science magazine's Science Careers.

Created by Linda Musser, Lrm4@psu.edu.

© The Pennsylvania State University, Fletcher L. Byrom Earth and Mineral Sciences Library, 2002.

Last revised 15 September 2004.