Top Databases
Here are some of the top databases in this subject area:
- BIOSIS PreviewsIssued as a part of the ISI Web of Knowledge, the database covers original research reports and reviews in biological and biomedical areas. Coverage includes traditional areas of biology such as botany, zoology, and microbiology, as well as related fields such as biomedical, agriculture, pharmacology, and ecology. Also included are interdisciplinary fields such as medicine, biochemistry, biophysics, bioengineering, and biotechnology. The database covers content summaries, books, meeting abstracts, papers, and posters. BIOSIS also combines the content from Biological Abstracts and Biological Abstracts/RRM.
- Environmental Issues & Policy IndexFormerly known as Environmental issues & policy index, Environmental Policy Index, and Environmental Knowledgebase Online. The Environment Index provides researchers with abstracts and indexing for over 1,000 titles covering environmental policy and...
- Index to American Botanical LiteratureIndex contains entries dealing with various aspects of extant and fossil American plants and fungi, including systematics and floristics, morphology, and ecology, as well as economic botany and general botany (publications dealing with botanists,...
- Wildlife & Ecology studies WorldwideIndex to scientific and management literature on wild mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians from journals, conference proceedings, theses, dissertations and other publications. Major topic areas include studies of individual species, habitat types, hunting, economics, wildlife behavior, management techniques, diseases, ecotourism, zoology, and taxonomy.
- Zoological RecordBibliographical references from more than 6,000 international journals, review annuals, monographs, meeting proceedings, books and reports, representing research in all major areas of zoology, including: behavior, ecology, evolution, genetics, habitat, nutrition, parasitology, reproduction, taxonomy, zoogeography.
- BioOneCollection of the full texts of various research journals focused on the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences.
- Global PlantsGlobal Plants is a community-contributed database that features more than two million high resolution plant type specimen images and other foundational materials from the collections of hundreds of herbaria around the world. It is an essential resource for institutions supporting research and teaching in botany, ecology, and conservation studies. Through Global Plants, herbaria can share specimens, experts can determine and update naming structures, students can discover and learn about plants in context, and a record of plant life can be preserved for future generations. The content available on Global Plants has been contributed through an effort known as the Global Plants Initiative (GPI).
- Integrated Taxonomic Information SystemHere you will find authoritative taxonomic information on plants, animals, fungi, and microbes of North America and the world. We are a partnership of U.S., Canadian, and Mexican agencies (ITIS-North America); other organizations; and taxonomic specialists. ITIS is also a partner of Species 2000 and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). The ITIS and Species 2000 Catalogue of Life (CoL) partnership is proud to provide the taxonomic backbone to the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL).
- KBD : Kew bibliographic databasesA database of references relevant to the nomenclature and taxonomy of flowering plants, gymnosperms and ferns. Includes Kew Record, Economic Botany, and Plant Micromorphology.
- PrimateLit : a bibliographic database for primatologyThe PrimateLit database provides bibliographic access to the scientific literature on nonhuman primates for the research and educational communities. Coverage of the database spans 1940 to present and includes all publication categories (articles, books, abstracts, technical reports, dissertations, book chapters, etc.) and many subject areas (behavior, colony management, ecology, reproduction, field studies, disease models, veterinary science, psychology, physiology, pharmacology, evolution, taxonomy, developmental and molecular biology, genetics and zoogeography).
- Genome DatabasesProvides access to over 150 genetic sequence databases and related materials. Users can browse 18 organism categories (human, rodent, other vertebrate, nematode, insect, etc.) or search by database title and description. Emphasis on humans, vertebrates, bacteria, and plants of agricultural significance.
- Invasive species compendiumThe Invasive Species Compendium (ISC) is an encyclopaedic resource that brings together a wide range of different types of science-based information to support decision-making in invasive species management worldwide. It comprises detailed datasheets that have been written by experts, edited by an independent scientific organization, peer reviewed, and enhanced with data from specialist organizations, images, and maps, a bibliographic database and full text articles. New datasheets and data sets continue to be added, datasheets are reviewed and updated, and scientific literature added on a weekly basis.
Finding databases in your subject area using the Databases link
Databases are collections of articles (or other materials), either general or subject-specific, which often include material not freely available on the open Web and give you additional tools for more comprehensive or precise searching. To get to a list of all databases offered by Cornell, use the Database Link under the main search box on the Cornell Library home page.
Use the Cornell Library Guides to find resources for your specific subject or course!
NOTE: The Articles & Full Text link will search within most of the article databases (and ebooks) Cornell has access to; however, the Databases link only finds the titles of specific databases, not their contents.
Google vs. Web of Science
- Google ScholarGoogle Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations. Google Scholar helps you identify the most relevant research across the world of scholarly research.--About Google scholar.
- Web of ScienceChoosing "All Databases" allows you to search an index of journal articles, conference proceedings, data sets, and other resources in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities.
Google Scholar
- Search engine of the whole internet which narrows the internet results based on machine automated criteria.
- Multi-disciplinary (pro and con)
- Google-like search interface
- Searches some full-text: you can find information that is not necessarily in the citation or abstract of an article, for instance, a detail buried in the Methods section of a journal article. If you're not having luck finding something extremely specific with Web of Science search, try Google Scholar
- Not just journal articles (books, patents, dissertations, other material)
- Not necessarily peer-reviewed
- Criteria for inclusion as "scholarly" in Google Scholar results is based on publishers submitting information to Google Scholar about their web sites, and is not necessarily based on the attributes of the sources themselves.
- Inaccurate retrieval and variable content means that search results are not necessarily reproducible and therefore not reportable. They would not be appropriate for systematic reviews.
Web of Science
- Human-curated database
- Journals are the focus of Web of Science, and they are selected for inclusion by humans based on scholarly criteria by literature review committees. Web of Science journal selection is explained.
- Web of Science is interdisciplinary and covers all scientific areas, but it only covers what it considers to "best" journals and concentrates on English language ones.
- Mostly peer-reviewed, scholarly literature
- More control over your search
- Data about each article is entered into the database in a uniform structured way: author, title, date, journal name. This means you get accurate retrieval when searching for those things. Results can be sorted reliably by latest date.
- Articles in Web of Science are tagged with important information about their structure, such as "review article".
- Accurate retrieval means that search results are reproducible and reportable (especially important for systematic reviews)