Find articles
Use these resources to find articles from a variety of resources.
- The Geological Society of America— Browse/Search AbstractsBrowse and search abstracts from the Geological Society of America
- GeoRef This link opens in a new windowGeoRef contains many references to geoscience journal articles, along with books, maps, conference papers and abstracts, and other reports.
Use this resource to find and access scholarly articles or to connect an article to a conference paper. - Web of Science This link opens in a new windowWeb of Science connects publications and researchers through citations and controlled indexing in curated databases spanning every discipline. Use cited reference search to track prior research and monitor current developments in over 100 year's worth of content that is fully indexed.
- Google Scholar This link opens in a new windowIn addition to Google Scholar's vast number of results, the service will also help you track citations forward and backward.
- All geosciences databasesView all geoscience databases linked by Milne Library.
Find data
Use these resources to find data and other background information on your mineral.
- mindat.orgMindat.org has been collecting, organising, and sharing mineral information since October 2000. It is now an essential resource used daily throughout education, academia, and industry. The mindat.org database contains information on minerals and the localities they are found at.
- mindat.orgMindat.org has been collecting, organising, and sharing mineral information since October 2000. It is now an essential resource used daily throughout education, academia, and industry. The mindat.org database contains information on minerals and the localities they are found at.
Selecting a database
Use databases to find materials related to specific subject areas. Each database contains a multitude of journals and other resources for you to use in finding material for you own research.
When selecting a database, be mindful of three things:
- What subject(s) does the database cover?
- Although librarians do their best to classify databases into appropriate subject areas, some databases cover certain subject areas better than others. Looking in Aquatic Commons for articles about air pollution won't do much good.
- Similarly, consider the kinds of research you expect to find in a database. Most databases in science subject areas contain articles with scientific analysis; that is, they're very data-driven and focused on showing results of experiments and observation. Looking in history, political science, sociology, and education databases for the same keywords will give you very different results.
- What date range does the database cover?
- Databases can only cover a specific range of time. You'll need to be sure to consider how recent the material in the database is when selecting a database to use.
- What types of material does the database cover?
- Most of the research you're expecting in academic research is in scholarly journal articles. And those kinds of articles are most of the resources that databases have in them. Some databases will have other types of material in them, such as
- audio/visual material
- book chapters
- book reviews
- conference proceedings
- dissertations
- magazine or newspaper articles
- statistical data
- Most of the research you're expecting in academic research is in scholarly journal articles. And those kinds of articles are most of the resources that databases have in them. Some databases will have other types of material in them, such as
