Research Guides: Water Resources: Finding Articles

Research & Instruction Librarian

Maggie Gordon

she/her

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Douglas Library
Room 520

Subjects: Biology, Environmental Studies, Geological Sciences

Finding Articles

Peer-reviewed journal articles are important scientific communication tools in water research. The peer-review publication process helps to ensure that the research findings are trustworthy, accurate, and of value to the field. They often contain the first reports of new research and sometimes contain literature review summaries of past research conducted on a topic that is of current interest.

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Scopus
Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database, including peer-reviewed titles from international publishers, Open Access journals, conference proceedings, trade publications, quality web sources.
Date Coverage: 1788-present (updated daily)
Web of Science (Core Collection)
A large, multidisciplinary database, Web of Science provides access to bibliographic information, author abstracts, and cited references from scholarly journals and conference proceedings. A cited reference search enables you to find articles that cite a previously published work.
This database consists of these subject components, which can be searched simultaneously or individually (to search individually, limit to required citation database(s) at bottom of screen):

Science Citation Index Expanded - science and technology journals from 1900-present
Social Sciences Citation Index - social sciences journals from 1956-present
Arts & Humanities Citation Index - arts and humanities journals from 1975-present
Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Science (CPCI-S) from 1990-present
Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Social Science & Humanities (CPCI-SSH) from 1990-present
Journal Citation Reports (listing impact factors and other journal performance metrics) are available through Web of Science.

Science Citation Index: 1900 - present ; Social Sciences Citation Index: 1956 - present ; Arts and Humanities: 1975 - present
Compendex
Ei Compendex is the world's most comprehensive engineering literature database.
As of 2018, it contained more than 22 million references dating back to 1884. Compendex currently indexes more than 4,000 journals and trade magazines, dozens of book series, thousands of conference proceedings, dissertations, theses and standards from AIAA, ASCE, ASTM, BSI, IEEE, and SAE. More than one million new records are added each year. Records are assigned terms and classification codes from the Engineering Index Thesaurus.

Date Coverage: 1884 - present (updated weekly)

Environment Complete
Deep coverage of environmental aspects of agriculture, ecosystem ecology, energy, renewable energy sources, natural resources, marine & freshwater science, geography, pollution & waste management, environmental technology, environmental law, public policy, social impacts, urban planning, and more.
Environment Complete contains more than 1,957,000 records, some with images, from more than 1,700 domestic and international titles going back to the 1940s (including 1,125 active core titles) as well as more than 120 monographs. The database also contains full text for more than 680 journals, including many of the most used journals in the discipline, such as Environment (back to 1975), Ecologist, and Conservation Biology. Additionally, Environment Complete provides full text for 120 monographs, such as Encyclopedia of World Environmental History (3 volumes), and Advances in Water Treatment & Environmental Management.

Date Coverage: Varies by title. 1940s to present.
AGRICOLA
AGRICOLA is a public database produced by the National Agriculture Library (NAL) containing references to the literature of agriculture and allied fields.

Free access
It contains more than 5.2 million records for publications dating as far back as the 15th century and classified using NAL Agricultural Thesaurus terms and LC subject headings. In addition to journal articles, AGRICOLA covers books, book chapters, serials, reports, audiovisual materials and online content from around the world.

Date Coverage: 15th century to present
ASCE Research Library
The ASCE Library is the world’s largest full-text database of civil engineering research and practical publications. It offers online access to more than 145,000 technical and professional papers—1.5 million pages of content. More than 7,000 papers are added annually. Queen’s Library subscribes to the complete package that includes journals, proceedings books, standards, and Civil Engineering magazine.
Technical and professional interest areas of civil engineering include: Aerospace, Architectural, Coastal and Ocean, Computing in Civil Engineering, Construction, Energy, Engineering Mechanics, Environmental, Geotechnical, Hydraulic, Infrastructure, Materials, Management, Professional Issues, Structural, Transportation, Urban Planning, and Water Resources. Searching and browsing the collection, and viewing the table of contents and abstracts of papers are freely available. Downloading the full-text of papers, books, and standards is restricted to members of the Queen's community

ASCE Journals 1983- present
ASCE Proceedings 1966-present
E-Books 1980- present
ASCE Standards 1983- present
Civil Engineering Magazine Archive: 2005-2019
GEOBASE
GEOBASE consists of the latest information on the earth sciences, ecology, geology, human and physical geography, and environmental sciences, focusing on, and highlighting, the human and social impacts on both.
It covers 3+ million abstract records, providing a comprehensive geological evaluation of any desired region. This includes geological structure and relation to natural resources, as well as linking management, transport, and urban planning.

Date Coverage: 1974 - present
PubAg
PubAg is a public database produced by the National Agriculture Library (NAL) containing references to articles related to the agricultural sciences.
Each record is classified using terms from the NAL Agricultural Thesaurus and MeSH (Medical Subject Headings). As of 2017, PubAg contained 42,000 full-text peer-reviewed journal articles by USDA staff and over 1.7 million citations.

Date Coverage: Varies by publication

This is not an exhaustive list of all water-related journals. You can browse more here.

Omni

Use Omni to search the library's catalogue for books, articles, videos, maps, government documents, music, data sets, open access materials, and more. You can discover materials that are not available at Queen's but that you can freely request either within Omni or through interlibrary loan.

How to Read a Scientific Paper

How to Read a Scientific Paper
An overview of and infographic illustrating how to read a scientific paper.
Anatomy of a Scholarly Article (NCSU Libraries)

Where's the Article?

If the full-text is not available in the database, click on the Get It @ Queen's button to see if the article is available electronically (either from a journal or another database) or in print.

If the article is not available, you can request a copy using Interlibrary Loans. It's free!