Penn State University Libraries - Bioengineering 406/506

The CAT provides author, title, and subject access to 'whole items.' Whole items means that the entire resource is indexed generally without information to the parts of the work. For example, a conference will be listed by the title of the conference, the editor, the sponsoring agency, and subject headings. The individual papers presented at the conference will not be indexed in the CAT. Journal titles will be listed, but not individual papers published in the journal. For access to individual articles or conference papers a subject database is used. Materials that are indexed in the CAT include books, journal titles, computer files, CD ROMs, conferences, videos, maps, etc.

Quick Guide to Searching the CAT (HTML version). or  Quick Guide to Searching in the CAT (easy-print PDF version)

Compendex (Computerized Engineering Index) is the major index to all branches of engineering. It indexes journal articles and conference papers from 1884-. You may search by author, title words, keyword or subject headings, as well as other index terms. Many of the articles are available full text online. Use the yellow fulltext links or the Get It! icon for more information.

IEEE Xplore contains the full text of all IEEE and IEE journal articles, conference papers, and standards published since 1988.

Inspec is the electronic version of Physics Abstracts, Computer and Control Abstracts, and Electrical and Electronics Abstracts. It indexes conference papers and journal articles in physics, computer science, electrical engineering, as well as other related subjects. Inspec searches the same as Compendex and both databases can be searched at the same time if you check the "All" box at the topic of the search page.

Knovel is a collection of 800 full text handbooks in many areas of engineering. Knovel searches both the text and tables. Excellent for searching for property information. Knovel allows customization of charts and importing of tables and charts into your reports.

NTIS (National Technical Information Service) is a major index to technical reports. A large percent are on the various branches of engineering. Coverage starts with 1964. You may search by author, title, keyword or subject headings. There is no call number, but each report is identified by a ID number, which is the number used in filing the reports, on microfiche, in cabinets on the left side of the Engineering Library. If the report you need is not in the file cabinet, ask for assistance at the circulation desk in the Engineering Library. We can order the report for you. It normally takes approximately ten days for the report to arrive. Note that many reports are now available full text on the Web.

ProQuest is a multi-disciplinary database which indexes over 5000 journals, magazines and newspapers. Many are full text. While coverage of engineering topics is not strong from a technological sense, it is very good for looking at the social and economic aspects and there are some appropriate journals indexed.

PubMed (Medline) is an index to medical journals. It provides abstracts for many and full text access to a number of titles. Citations go back to the 1950s. PubMed tutorial is available.

Science Citation Index - Web of Science is a valuable index that allows you to discover what subsequent publications have included a reference to an earlier, pertinent publication in their bibliography. SCI indexes 3200 titles in all areas of science and technology. Searching is done via author name. The theory behind citation indexing is simple. If a later paper references a paper that you have found useful, there is a strong possibility that the later paper might be useful to you. Citation indexing provides that link so you can locate these new papers. Full text links are available for many citations.