Search the Libraries for books, journals, articles, media and more.
Journals to browse
Article indexes and databases
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Web of ScienceA comprehensive interdisciplinary collection of journal article citations. Subjects generally covered are within science and technology, arts and humanities, and social sciences.
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BIOSIS (Biology)Via Web of Science, BIOSIS covers life sciences and biomedical research covering pre-clinical and experimental research, methods and instrumentation, animal studies, and more. Access content from journals, meetings, patents, and books.
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Academic Search PremierA great place to start your research on any topic, search multidisciplinary, scholarly research articles. This database provides access to scholarly and peer reviewed journals, popular magazines and other resources.
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Zoological Record (Web of Science)Search articles covering all animal taxa from protozoa to the primates, and all aspects of their life cycles, behaviors, taxonomy, ecology and evolution. There are taxonomic summaries of each animal discussed in an article, geographical headings and additional subject approaches.
Search tips:
Use as many synonyms as possible, and take advantage of the subject terms assigned by the index Use the Find It button to link to full text
Should I use Google Scholar?
If you want to quickly identify the complete citation or link to the full text for a known item, Google Scholar is a great tool. Be sure you are set up to see the links to the full text.
If you want a fast look at a few papers on a topic, Google Scholar can give you the flavor of the research that is being pursued.
But for a thorough search on a scientific topic, Google Scholar is not the best tool. The algorithm returns too many results, does not support robust subject searching or proper combining of concepts, and gives too much weight to older, highly cited papers. Also, output options are inadequate.
Using article indexes such as Web of Science or BIOSIS gives you the opportunity to use subject terms and limits as well as save sets and combine them to develop a list of references that matches your question and export results in a variety of ways.
Off-campus access to library resources
Current University students, staff and faculty should be able to get full text and online access to the University Libraries from anywhere. Here are three ways to access the library full text from off campus.
- Search the University of Minnesota library website. Log in with you UMN Internet ID and password to access resources.
- Log in using the U of M Virtual Private Network (VPN). You will need to download it to your computer from campus OIT (Office of Information Technology).
- Install the Libraries' Proxy Bookmarklet to your browser and click it to reload the page with your U of M login to get access to full text. Watch a proxy bookmarklet video (3 min) to learn more.
View examples and learn more on our How to get to full text from on and off campus Guide.
Citation manager basics
A citation manager is a software tool used to create personalized databases of citation information and notes. They allow you to:
- import and organize citation information from article indexes and other sources,
- export your citations into Word documents or other types of publications,
- format citations for your papers and bibliographies using APA and many other styles, and
- include your own notes.
Choosing a citation manager
Zotero
Zotero is a free, open-source citation manager that:
- imports and organizes citations and PDFs;
- recognizes and creates citations for wide range of file types;
- formats citations in thousands of styles including APA and Chicago;
- easily adds in-text citations to Word and Google Doc documents, and creates a bibliography from those citations;
- allows you to add notes to your citation information for later use.
Mendeley
Mendeley is a free citation manager that can:
- create a database of citations by easily importing items from databases;
- manage your PDFs;
- sync your database to the Web;
- tag citations, organize them into folders, annotate, and share with others; and
- create bibliographies and in-text citations in a variety of styles, or export bibliographic data to other citation management applications like Zotero and EndNote.
EndNote Basic
EndNote Basic is a free online citation manager that allows you to:
- collect and store up to 50,000 references
- organize and share your references with others
- insert references and format a bibliography in Word
Journal of Mammalogy style
An example of a journal article reference in Journal of Mammalogy style:
House MR, Pyles MR, White D. 2005. Velocity distributions in streambed simulation culverts used for fish passage. Journal of the American Water Resources Association 41(1):209-217.
Tip: Use Journal of Mammalogy as your style in Zotero or Mendeley