RESEARCH GUIDE: PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY

This is a guide to the major print and online bibliographic resources in chemistry. While basic resources are included, there are many others that cannot be covered here because of length. For assistance, contact a Reference Librarian.

Reference Sources | Books | Journal Articles | Review Articles | Selected Internet Sites

1. Reference Sources

1.1 General

• Cambridge Atlas of Astronomy -- REFERENCE QB65.G6813 1985
• Encyclopedia of Climate and Weather -- REFERENCE QC854.E523 1996
• Encyclopedia of Physics -- REFERENCE QC5.E545 2005
• Encyclopedia of the Solar System -- REFERENCE QB501.E53 2007
• Macmillan Encyclopedia of Physics -- REFERENCE QC5.M15 1996

1.2 Handbooks

• CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics -- REFERENCE QD65.H3
  • A first-stop reference source containing a wealth of basic chemical and physical data for compounds, as well as many other useful tables, constants and formulas, and definitions.
• NIST Chemistry WebBook
  • Provides thermochemical, thermophysical, and ion energetics data compiled by NIST under the Standard Reference Data Program. Users can search by molecule name, formula, or CAS number. Standard results include formula, structure, weight, CAS number, and often also various spectra, phase data, and thermochemical data.

1.3 Biography

• American Men and Women of Science -- REFERENCE Q141.A47 2003
  • This is the primary "Who's Who" of U.S. academic science, but is limited to persons who were alive and working at the time of each edition's publication.
• Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science -- REFERENCE Q141.B5285 2000
• Dictionary of Scientific Biography -- REFERENCE Q141.D5 1981
• Dictionary of Scientists (Oxford Reference Online)
• Notable Twentieth-Century Scientists -- REFERENCE Q141.N3 1995

2. Books

• Centre Library Online Catalog
  • Contains the cataloged holdings of the Centre College Library.
• Kentucky Virtual Library
  • Use KYVL to search other Kentucky libraries, including the University of Kentucky and University of Louisville.
• Interlibrary Loan
  • Use the Interlibrary Loan service to borrow books and journal articles from other libraries.
• Worldcat
  • WorldCat contains records for the holdings of several thousand libraries. This is an excellent starting point for identifying and locating material beyond the Centre College library.

3. Journal Articles

3.1 The Best Resources for Starting Your Research

• Academic Search Premier 
  • Indexes 7,800+ scholarly journals, with full text for 4,000 titles. Covers social sciences, humanities, education, computer science and engineering, general science, medicine, ethnic studies, and more. 1965- present for selected titles.
• Wilson OmniFile Full Text 
  • Includes General Science Full Text and Applied Science & Technology, two good indexes for finding introductory level journal and magazine articles in physics.

3.2 Additional Resources

• Scitation SPIN Databases
• Indexes and abstracts more than 100 major physics, astronomy, and engineering journals and conference proceedings. Allows browsing and searching within individual journals. Coverage is from 1875 to the present.
• PROLA (Physical Review Online Archive) & Physical Review Online Journals 
  • Index and electronic fulltext access to all American Physical Society (APS) journal material. Includes access to an archive of APS materials and as well as access to current APS journals. Coverage is from 1893 to the present.

3.3 Electronic Journals

• Electronic Journals in Physics
  • Browse a list of electronic journals in physics available to Centre College users.

4. Review Articles

Review articles provide an overview of a topic, highlighting the major work and providing many key references.

• Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics (vol. 66, 1997-present)
• Annual Review of Energy and Environment (vol. 37, 1997-present)
• Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science (vol. 47, 1996-present)
• Annual Review of Physical Chemistry (vol. 47, 1996-present)

5. Selected Internet Sites

5.1 General

• Librarians Internet Index: Chemistry
• Science.gov
  • Gateway to scientific resources produced by the U.S. government. There are a number of important chemistry-related databases available here, including ChemWebBook, CHEMIDPlus, IRIS, CancerNet. etc. Many are searchable by compound name, CAS Registry Number, structure, etc.

5.2 Astronomy

• AstroWeb
  A collection of links to astronomy-related information. The main resources topics - observing, data, publication-related, people, organizations, software, research areas, lists, astronomical imagery, and miscellaneous - are further subdivided for ease of use. The site is simple in design, but rich in resources.
• NASA Astrophysics Data System
• SIMBAD Astronomical Database

Last updated July 20, 2007