Library Resources for Research
Biology & Animal Sciences Databases
- Web of Science
Multidisciplinary index covering topics in the sciences, social sciences and humanities. Some full text available. - Natural Science CollectionSearches multiple databases in the following science areas: Agricultural, aquatic, atmospheric, biological, earth and environmental.
- Databases & E-Reference in Biological Sciences & MedicineView all OU Libraries databases and eReference materials associated with your subject.
General Science Databases
- SciFinder1907 - present (with some 19th century material).
Focused on chemistry, but chemistry is defined broadly, so can be useful for biology, physics, engineering, astronomy, etc. Users must register. - Academic Search CompleteComprehensive, multidisciplinary database covering social sciences, humanities, education, physical and life sciences, and ethnic studies with access to more than 7,000 peer reviewed journals and over 75,000 videos from the Associated Press.
- Google ScholarGoogle Scholar enables you to search for literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts, and technical reports from all broad areas of research. However, it indexes these items automatically and you should take care to verify the scholarly nature of items you find. Additionally, sometimes the OU Article Linker does not work correctly from Google Scholar results; in those cases take the title, journal, or authors and search in a database from the Libraries website.
- Engineering VillageEngineering database - searches Compendex, Inspec, and GEOBASE. Click "Check Access" then click on "sign in" via your institution. Type in "University of Oklahoma" (your email will not work) then select University of Oklahoma. This will prompt you to log in with your 4x4. Then click "continue without signing in". It's complicated but it's worth it!
- JSTORFull text and complete archives of core scholarly journals in most disciplines. Some journals date from the 1600s. Current issues may not be available.
- FirstSearch CollectionA list of databases available from FirstSearch on various subjects, including AnthropologyPlus, ArticleFirst, ClasePeriodica, Ebooks, ECO (Electronic Collections Online), ERIC, GEOBASE, GPO, History of Science, Technology and Medicine, Medline, OAIster, PapersFirst, Proceedings, World Almanac, WorldCat, and WorldCat Dissertations.
Biomedical Science
- PubMedU.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) database of biomedical and life sciences journal literature.
- MedlineIndex and abstracts to journals published internationally, covering medicine, dentistry, nursing, and other health fields. This link goes to the Ebscohost interface; searches via Ovid and FirstSearch are also available via libraries.ou.edu/eresources.
- PsycTESTSProvides access to psychological tests, measures, scales, surveys and other assessments as well as descriptive information about the test, its development and administration.
Finding Journals
- OU Libraries Journal SearchDo you know of a specific publication you're looking for? Search for journals by title or ISSN.
Looking for handbooks and encyclopedias? Go to the Background Information page. Looking for datasets? Go to Quantitative & Qualitative Analysis
Dissertations
Dissertations Written by OU Students
- Visit OU Libraries Discover/Local Catalog
- Search by author or title.
- Online full text access to doctoral dissertations (Masters' theses are not available electronically).
- Print copies can be checked out (shelved by author's last name in the Great Reading Room, with overflow into the nearby Decks).
- SHAREOK Repository https://shareok.org/
- Joint repository of digital items for OU and OSU
- Since 2014, OU dissertations have been deposited there so that they are freely available
- Items can be found through a Google (or other search engine) search.
Dissertations & Theses from Other Universities
- ProQuest Dissertations & Theses – Formerly known as Dissertation Abstracts. Provides full text access 1997-present to most dissertations from U.S. institutions. Provides indexing information to dissertations 1861 - present. Many universities, including OU, no longer submit the full text of their dissertations in this database. Instead, they post their dissertations in an institutional repository (at OU, this is SHAREOK). If the dissertation is not available electronically, you can order through interlibrary loan.
- DART-Europe E-theses Portal – Dissertations from European universities
- UK Theses
Professional Societies in Biology & Animal Sciences
To find grey literature, identify professional societies in your discipline and use a web browser such as Google to search their web sites for publications or report series or search for "grey literature" plus your discipline. The list below is non-exhaustive and adapted from Purdue University College of Science. Want to recommend an addition to the list? Email libstem@ou.edu.
- American Association for the Advancement of Science
- American Institute of Biological Sciences
- The American Physiological Society
- American Society for Human Genetics
- American Society for Microbiology
- Association for Women in Science
- Botanical Society of America
- Ecological Society Association
- Federation of American Scientists
- The International Association for Science, Technology and Society
- National Academy of Science
- The National Association of Biology Teachers
- Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology
- Society for the Advancement of Chicanos & Native Americans in Science
- Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology
- Society for Neuroscience
Biology & Animal Sciences Government Documents
Federal Resources
- Center for Disease Control
- Department of Agriculture: Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service
- Department of Health & Human Services
- Department of Health & Human Services: Healthfinder.Gov
- Department of Health & Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
- Office of Disability Employment Policy
- Emergency Access Initiative
- Fish and Wildlife Service: Endangered Species Program
- Library of Congress: Health/Medical
- Library of Congress: Science and Technology
- Library of Congress: Zoology
- Library of Medicine: National Institutes of Health
- National Center for Biotechnology Information
- National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
- National Institutes of Health
- National Institute of Medicine: National Institutes of Health: MedLine Plus
- National Library of Medicine: Pub Med
- National Science Foundation (NSF)
- Science.gov
- Smithsonian: Contributions to Zoology
- Vital Statistics of the US, 1900-Present
International Resources
- European Union Homepage, Europa
- Library of Congress, Country Studies
- UNESCO: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
- United Nations Homepage
- US Central Intelligence Agency, World Fact Book
- US State Department Bilateral Relations Fact Sheet (Background Notes)
- World Health Organization
State Resources
- Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology
- Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse
- Oklahoma State Department of Health
- Oklahoma State Department of Health, OK2SHARE Service Databases
- Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation
- Statistical Abstract of Oklahoma
Questions? Reach out to OU Government Documents Librarian Jeffrey Wilhite.
Patent Searching
Business Information
- GreyNet International
- World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
- Business Source Elite – covers business, management, economics, banking, finance, and accounting. Materials indexed include scholarly, peer-reviewed, and some trade journals. Some full text is available.
- ABI/INFORM (ProQuest One Business) – Now included in the ProQuest One Business database, this resource covers business and management topics with information on more than 60,000 companies through journals, newspapers, executive profiles, reports on market conditions, and in-depth case studies of global business trends.
- Industry Reports OU Libraries guide
Popular Treatments of Biology & Evolution
Send us your recommendations: libstem@ou.edu
Fatal Invention by Call Number: GN 269 .R64 2011 (also ebook)ISBN: 9781595586919Publication Date: 2011"An incisive, groundbreaking book that examines how a biological concept of race is a myth that promotes inequality in a supposedly "post-racial" era. Though the Human Genome Project proved that human beings are not naturally divided by race, the emerging fields of personalized medicine, reproductive technologies, genetic genealogy, and DNA databanks are attempting to resuscitate race as a biological category written in our genes. This groundbreaking book by legal scholar and social critic Dorothy Roberts examines how the myth of race as a biological concept--revived by purportedly cutting-edge science, race-specific drugs, genetic testing, and DNA databases--continues to undermine a just society and promote inequality in a supposedly "post-racial" era."
Native American DNA by Call Number: E 98 .A55 T35 2013 (also temporarily available online)ISBN: 9780816665853Publication Date: 2013"TallBear notes that ideas about racial science, which informed white definitions of tribes in the nineteenth century, are unfortunately being revived in twenty-first-century laboratories. Because today's science seems so compelling, increasing numbers of Native Americans have begun to believe their own metaphors: "in our blood" is giving way to "in our DNA." This rhetorical drift, she argues, has significant consequences, and ultimately she shows how Native American claims to land, resources, and sovereignty that have taken generations to ratify may be seriously--and permanently--undermined."- Black Apollo of Science: the life of Ernest Everett Just byCall Number: QH 31 .J83 M36 1983 (also available in History of Science and online)ISBN: 0195032993Publication Date: 1983"This biography illuminates the racial attitudes of an elite group of American scientists and foundation officers. It is the story of a complex and unhappy man. It blends social, institutional, black, and political history with the history of science."
Research Is a Passion with Me by Call Number: QL 31 .N5 A36, also available in History of Science collectionISBN: 0920474160Publication Date: 1979"In her incredibly productive lifetime (1883-1974), American-born ornithologist Margaret Morse Nice earned the admiration of ornithologists and naturalists in far distant lands. Research Is a Passion With Me is an enthralling autobiography of one of the great individuals in her field and of her time." Her autobiography includes many details of her time and work in Oklahoma. Also check out For the Birds: American Ornithologist Margaret Morse Nice by Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie.
Looking for a Few Good Males by Call Number: QL 761 .M48 2010ISBN: 9780801894190Publication Date: 2010'Approaching the topic from both biological and animal-studies perspectives, Milam not only presents a broad history of sexual selection - from Darwin to sociobiology - but also analyzes the animal-human continuum from the perspectives of sex, evolution, and behavior."
The Autobiography of a Transgender Scientist by Call Number: QP353.4.B37 A3 2018ISBN: 9780262039116Publication Date: 2018"A leading scientist describes his life, his gender transition, his scientific work, and his advocacy for gender equality in science. Ben Barres was known for his groundbreaking scientific work and for his groundbreaking advocacy for gender equality in science. In this book, completed shortly before his death from pancreatic cancer in December 2017, Barres (born Barbara Barres in 1954) describes a life full of remarkable accomplishments--from his childhood as a precocious math and science whiz to his experiences as a female student at MIT in the 1970s to his female-to-male transition in his forties, to his scientific work and role as teacher and mentor at Stanford. [...] At Stanford, Barres made important discoveries about glia, the most numerous cells in the brain, and he describes some of his work. "The most rewarding part of his job," however, was mentoring young scientists. That, and his advocacy for women and transgender scientists, ensures his legacy."
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Call Number: RC 265.6 .L24 S55 2010ISBN: 9781400052172Publication Date: 2010"Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells--taken without her knowledge--became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first "immortal" human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. [...] Henrietta's family did not learn of her "immortality" until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family--past and present--is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of."
The Fossil Hunter by Call Number: QE 707 .A56 E46 2009 (Youngblood Energy Library; also available in History of Science stacks)ISBN: 9780230611566Publication Date: 2009"A story worthy of Dickens, The Fossil Hunter chronicles the life of this young girl, with dirt under her fingernails and not a shilling to buy dinner, who became a world-renowned paleontologist. Dickens himself said of Mary: "The carpenter's daughter has won a name for herself, and deserved to win it." Here at last, Shelley Emling returns Mary Anning, of whom Stephen J. Gould remarked, is "probably the most important unsung (or inadequately sung) collecting force in the history of paleontology," to her deserved place in history."
The Song of the Dodo by Call Number: QH 541.5 .I8 Q35 1996ISBN: 0684800837Publication Date: 1996"Thirty years ago, two young biologists named Robert MacArthur and Edward O. Wilson triggered a far-reaching scientific revolution. In a book titled The Theory of Island Biogeography, they presented a new view of a little-understood matter: the geographical patterns in which animal and plant species occur. Why do marsupials exist in Australia and South America, but not in Africa? Why do tigers exist in Asia, but not in New Guinea? Influenced by MacArthur and Wilson's book, an entire generation of ecologists has recognized that island biogeography - the study of the distribution of species on islands and islandlike patches of landscape - yields important insights into the origin and extinction of species everywhere." Available in the stacks and on reserve. A fascinating book.
The Making of the Fittest by Call Number: QP 624 .C37 2006ISBN: 0393061639Publication Date: 2006"Sean Carroll guides the general reader on a tour of the massive DNA record of three billion years of evolution to see how the fittest are made. And what a eye-opening tour it is--one featuring immortal genes, fossil genes, and genes that bear the scars of past battles with horrible diseases."
- A Natural Talent: The Taxidermy of Carl Cotton"Carl Cotton (1918–1971) was a taxidermist, artist, and exhibition preparator who worked at the Field Museum from 1947 until his death in 1971. He is the Field Museum’s first African American taxidermist, maybe even Chicago’s first professional one. [...] I’ve been able to sketch a portrait of a humble, talented man who was passionate about nature and the art of taxidermy. Cotton spent almost 25 years creating beautiful exhibitions behind the scenes, never expecting to be the subject of one."
News
- EurekalertNews releases from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Podcasts
Videos
- KanopyProvides access to streaming video supporting classes in the arts, business, health, media/communication, science, humanities and education. NOTE: Kanopy video access is mediated. This means that any video not currently licensed for use will require the user to request access. Access is being enabled for class use with instructor approval.
- Internet ArchiveNon-profit archive dedicated to preserving digital content.
- PBS VideoPublic Broadcasting Service
The Library's Role Is Providing Access
Databases are searching tools designed to help researchers find information. Check out OU Libraries' What are Databases? handout to learn more.
OU Libraries subscribe to both databases (paying for the indexing that the databases do) and to publications (paying for full text access). In the age of the internet, there are many ways to publish information; as such, the library connects you to many different types of resources. Don't hesitate to reach out to the Research Help Desk or the STEM Services team for assistance.
Struggling to find the full text of an item? Look for the OU Link to Article button in the database or try searching the library catalog. Check out OU Libraries' Finding Full Text guide. You can also try the interactive tutorial, Access Full Text. If we don't have a resource available here, often another library has it and is willing to send us a copy via Interlibrary Loan. The Lean Library browser extension can make accessing full text easier and will even direct you to Interlibrary Loan where needed.
Scholarly Sources
Peer review is a system within the academic community that is widely accepted. Generally, the peer review process is an evaluation of an academic work (a submitted manuscript or preprint) done by other professionals (reviewers) in the same field. Scholars rely on peer review to check each others' work and ensure published information is factual and accurate. The peer review process is used to evaluate journal articles, but also books (also called monographs) and sometimes conference papers and grant applications.
Many scholars consider an article trustworthy once it has been peer-reviewed; when crafting a bibliography for a course assignment, it is often expected that most sources be peer-reviewed, and some professors require this for all sources (ask your professor!).
The question of what counts as "scholarly" is often answered by peer review, but there are other forms of vetting information, such as review from a committee or the oversight of a standard issuing body or government organization. This can start to fall into the "grey literature" region – think about your research needs and what each perspective might offer. It is helpful in the long term to learn how to differentiate between sources and recognize an article as peer-reviewed.
How can I know for sure if an article is peer-reviewed?
- Identify the journal's title, then visit their website to view their policies
- Search the journal or periodical in the UlrichsWeb International Serials Directory
- In Ulrichs, journals that have a
icon are "refereed," which is a common term for peer review.
- In Ulrichs, journals that have a
If you are still not sure, reach out to your librarian.
Grey Literature
We went over peer review in detail, but scholars communicate with each other in many ways. Could your research question be informed by any of the following types of publications?
- Conference papers or proceedings
- Theses or dissertations
- Handbooks
- Standards
- Codes or safety data
- Industry websites
- Datasets
- Clinical trials
- Trade journals
- Patents
- Technical reports
- Government documents
- Market and industry reports
- Interviews, newsletters, press releases
Library databases do a very good job of listing and organizing the published literature of a discipline – particularly articles and books. Many library databases also include these other kinds of documents. However, many disciplines produce information that might not be part of library databases.
For example, the discipline of engineering produces countless technical report series published by universities, funding agencies, government agencies, and professional engineering societies. Some, but not all, of these report series are indexed in the enormous database Engineering Village. It can be difficult to find documents that aren't published commercially and aren't readily accessible via library databases. As a whole, these documents are sometimes referred to as "grey literature."
Grey literature search tips:
- Identify the important professional societies in your discipline, and search their web sites for publications or report series.
- Examine the "works cited" section of influential published books and articles on your topic.
- Use a web browser such as Google to search for "grey literature in engineering" or "grey literature in economics" (or whatever your discipline is).
- Consult your librarian.
Popular Works
Popular works have their time and place in the research process. Newspapers and magazines are considered popular works – check out OU Libraries Newspapers & Magazines guide, and our Popular Magazines guide lists common magazines!
Popular sources do not face the scholarly publication timeline. So, while the information does not undergo a vetting process, it is often more timely. CQ Researcher is a resource that might fit better under grey literature due to its congressional association, but its reports explore "hot" issues in the news each week, including political, social, medical, international, educational, environmental, technological and economical issues.
Visit the News Literacy research guide for information on identifying fake news, teaching news literacy, and resources for fact-checking.
OU Libraries Handouts
- Popular vs. ScholarlyLearn about the differences between popular sources and scholarly sources.
- What are databases?Learn about databases and how to access them from OU Libraries' website.