Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences

Articles and Databases
Books
Reference Materials
Internet Guides
Evaluating
Citing

Articles and Databases

Core Resources...

PubMed (Medline) covers all aspects of biomedical research in immunology, toxicology and pathobiology.
CAB Abstracts covers veterinary medicine, animal nutrition, animal breeding and poultry science.
TOXNET databases on toxicology, hazardous chemicals, environmental health, and toxic releases.
Biological Abstracts is the premier database for all of biology. Especially strong in microbiology.

Also of Interest...

Agricola is an agriculture database produced by the U.S. National Agricultural Library. It contains a wide variety of animal feeding, breeding, and veterinary information
Universite de Montreal has a searchable index of Veterinary journal articles, papers from conference proceedings, chapters of books, and electronic documents.
Web of Science (cited references) search for new articles which cite an older article by using the "cited ref" search mode.
Dissertations & Theses includes dissertations from most U.S. institutions.

Don't forget: Try These First if you want general popular interest magazines and newspapers or pro and con debate information.

Article Search Tips: Finding the best articles on your topic requires a number of steps:

Select a database from the list above.
Enter and combine terms appropriate to your topic.
Look at the best references you retrieve and determine the subject terms used for those articles. Then revise your search using these new terms.
Write down or print off all pertinent information (called the 'citation') including the journal title, volume, date, and page numbers.
Explore other databases and subject terms (which vary between databases) for more information.

Get the full text: Once you find the citation in a database, try the button to see if Penn State has the electronic or print version of the article you need. If the electronic version is available, it will appear as the first link on the Get it! menu. If the article is not available electronically, click on The CAT link to automatically search our catalog and see if Penn State has a print copy. If no other copy is available, you can use the ILLiad link to request it from another library.

Already have a citation? Use Citation Linker to see if Penn State has it online or in print!

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Books

Use The CAT for finding books owned by Penn State.

CAT Search Tips: The CAT is the list of what is owned by Penn State Libraries. Go to the Browse function if you are looking for a specific title or author (type last name first). Go to the Keyword function and combine terms to search on a topic then use the subject headings from relevant books for additional search terms. Write down the call number and location for any book you want. For more detailed searching information go to the Quick Guide to the CAT.

Suggested CAT Search Terms: Try searching for specific animals (i.e. poultry or dairy cattle), diseases (i.e. marek's disease or encephalopathy) or concepts (i.e. immunology or nutrition).

Call Numbers: At University Park, most materials in the life sciences are located on the 4th floor of Paterno Library. General call numbers and subject areas are:

QL - Zoology
QP - Physiology
QR - Immunology and Bacteriology
RA1190-RA1270 - Toxicology
SF95-SF99 - Animal Nutrition
SF191-SF219 - Cattle
SF221-SF275 - Dairying and Dairy Products
SF277-SF359 - Horses
SF371-SF379 - Sheep
SF391-SF397 - Swine
SF481-SF507 - Poultry
SF600-SF998 - Veterinary Medicine

Books Elsewhere: WorldCat

Libraries Borrowing Policies: Once you have the books, check them out at the nearest lending desk or self check-out station. Loan periods are usually four weeks but books can be recalled for another user, so respond promptly to library notices. For more information see the University Libraries Lending Code.

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Reference Materials

General Resources:

Access Science is the online equivalent of the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology.
Agropedia a compilation of agriculture encyclopedias, including the Encyclopedia of Animal Sciences.
U.S. Livestock Species Genome Projects links a multitude of resources on cattle, swine, sheep, poultry, horse, aquaculture and bioinformatics.
Animal Genomics Research Web Sites and Database Resources.

Veterinary Medicine Resources:

Consultant is a diagnostic support system for veterinary medicine from Cornell University. You can search by sign or diagnosis and limit retrieval to a specific species.
Merck Veterinary Manual is a classic handbook for veterinarians on the diagnosis and treatment of diseases in all animals. It is also available in in print.
Poisonous plant information can be found at the Plants Toxic to Animals page from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Veterinary Medical Library or the Cornell University Poisonous Plants Web Page.
Black's Veterinary Dictionary. edited by Geoffrey P. West. London. A&C Black, 1995.
Veterinary Abbreviations & Acronyms from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Animal Welfare Resources:

Altweb -- Project of the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing the global clearinghouse for information on alternatives to animal testing.
Animal Welfare Information Center from the National Agricultural Library provides access to a wealth information in their online publications

Toxicology Resources:

Toxipedia is the free toxicological encyclopedia written by experts and edited for accuracy.
TOXNET databases on toxicology, hazardous chemicals, environmental health, and toxic releases.

Immunology Resources:

IMGT, the ImMunoGeneTics is an integrated information system specializing in the immunoglobulins (IG), T cell receptors (TR), major histocompatibility complex (MHC) and related proteins of the immune system (RPI) of human and other vertebrate species. IMGT consists of sequence databases (IMGT/LIGM-DB, a comprehensive database of IG and TR from human and other vertebrates, with translation for fully annotated sequences, IMGT/MHC-DB, IMGT/PRIMER-DB), genome database (IMGT/GENE-DB) and structure database (IMGT/3Dstructure-DB), Web resources (IMGT Marie-Paule page) and interactive tools.

Associations of interest:

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Internet Guides

If you are just looking for information in a general topic area, a subject guide is more appropriate than Google.

NetVet Veterinary Resources Home Page provides an extensive listing of veterinary resources. Also includes access to the 'electronic zoo', a listing of animal resources.
Toxicology Resource Database is a searchable list of resources from the Society of Toxicology.
Immunology links from Harvard University.

Evaluating

To evaluate print sources and web sites, you should ask a series of questions concerning the source’s currency, authority, validity, intended audience and bias. See this How to Evaluate Information site for details.

Citing

When using information from another source you must give credit to the original author or you are plagiarizing. You give credit by citing the source. Make sure your citation contains everything you would need to backtrack and find the information again. It is best to pick one citation style and be consistent. Try this APA Quick Citiation Guide for details and format.

Plagiarism, whether you copy a paragraph from a book or cut and paste someone else's words from an e-mail, is a violation of Penn State's academic integrity policy. See this Statement on Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty.

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