Library Guides: A Guide to Engineering Research: Journal articles & conference papers

Start your search in a core engineering database

Start your search in a general engineering database, then try a few more databases from the lists below that suit your topic.

Compendex (EI)
The most comprehensive engineering database. Subjects include general, electrical, civil, chemical, and mechanical engineering; mining; applied physics; optics; bioengineering and biotechnology; food science and technology; materials science; instrumentation including medical devices; and nanotechnology. Sources include articles, conference proceedings, technical reports, and more. Content dates from 1970 - present.
IEEE Xplore
Collection of journal articles, conference proceedings, ebooks, and standards published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Content dates from 1988 - present. Many IEEE articles are included in Compendex, but the IEEE Xplore platform includes many other source types of interest to electrical engineers.

Multidisciplinary databases

Broaden your perspective -- try databases with wider subject coverage:

Web of Science Core Collection (WOS)
Provides multidisciplinary coverage of high-impact scholarly literature in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. Use the unique Cited References Search to find articles that cite an author or work -- this allows you to track citations forward in time. Content dates from 1900 - present. Includes Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, Arts & Humanities Citation Index, and Emerging Sources Citation Index.
Academic Search Complete
A full-text database designed to help students get started researching almost any topic. Sources include scholarly journal articles, popular magazines, newspapers, and more.
Google Scholar
Free search interface focused on finding scholarly literature -- including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports -- from all broad areas of research. Check out Google's search tips.

Materials science & property databases

Knovel
Use the "Property Search" to find material and property information from technical references. Knovel also provides access to handbooks, case studies, and other technical documents. Their site includes online tools such as a unit converter and interactive equation worksheets that help you find and learn to solve engineering equations.
Materials Science & Engineering Collection (ProQuest)
Covers materials science topics such as metals, polymers, ceramics, composites, and biomaterials, as well as areas such as corrosion, molding and casting, treatment, recycling, testing, finishing, welding, and forming. Includes the Copper Technical Reference Library, Engineered Materials Abstracts, METADEX, and Polymer Library. Content dates from 1962 - present.
Design and Applied Arts Index (DAAI)
A premier source of information for all aspects of design and applied arts, including architecture; advertising and product design; crafts; textiles, ceramics & jewelry; fashion; sustainable design; interior design; graphic design; and more.
Includes subjects such as ceramics, glass, jewelry, wood, metalsmithing, graphic design, fashion and clothing, textiles and fiber arts, furniture, interior design, architecture, computer aided design, Web design, computer-generated graphics, animation, product design, industrial design, garden design, and landscape architecture.
ASTM Standards and Engineering Digital Library
Provides access to the 15 sections of the ASTM Book of Standards. Also lets you search journal articles, book chapters, and other content published by ASTM International (formerly known as the American Society for Testing and Materials).
(Cookie privacy settings in Firefox can cause errors in the ASTM database--try Chrome or Edge.)
There are over 64,000 engineering and technical standards contained in this resource. Of those, over 13,000 are active standards, while the other 50,000 are historical or withdrawn standards.
CHEMnetBase
Filled with authoritative handbooks and recent research, including the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics; Dictionary of Organic Compounds; Dictionary of Inorganic and Organometallic Compounds; Dictionary of Drugs; Polymers Property Database; and more.
ENGnetBASE
Includes a critically acclaimed collection of best-selling engineering handbooks and reference titles.
SciFinder-n
The updated interface for Chemical Abstracts, the world's foremost resource for chemical information. Sources include scholarly journals, chemical properties and spectra, organic reactions, regulatory information, Markush structures from patents, and more. Search by topic, author, chemical identification terms (names, formulas, registry numbers), and chemical structures. Chemical literature dates from 1907 - present.
First-time users must register here before using Scifinder-n.

Engineering society publishers

Compendex (Engineering Index/Engineering Village) indexes all of the society publishers listed below. However, you can find the very newest content first on the publisher's sites, before it gets indexed for Compendex, and if you need historical information, you can find content published before 1970 here.

ASME Digital Collection
Collection of journals, conference proceedings, and other materials published by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).
Civil Engineering Database
Search for citations from all American Society of Civil Engineering (ASCE) publications. If you find an article of interest, try pasting the title, enclosed in quotation marks, into the Compass search box on the library homepage.
SPIE Digital Library
Offers peer-reviewed articles on applied research in optics and photonics, including optical engineering, electronic imaging, biomedical optics, microlithography, remote sensing, and nanophotonics.

More engineering databases

Advanced Technologies & Aerospace Database
Database of articles relevant to aeronautics, astronautics, communications, computer and information technology, electronics, lasers, solid-state materials and devices, space sciences, and telecommunications. Source types include scholarly journals, trade journals, conference proceedings, magazines, newspapers, and more. Content dates from 1962 - present.
Includes Computer & Information Systems Abstracts, Electronics & Communications Abstracts, Solid State & Superconductivity Abstracts.
Electronics & Communications Abstracts
Tracks current developments within topics such as Circuits, Components and Materials, Photonics, Control and Systems, Telecommunications, Telecommunications Equipment and Instrumentation, Power Systems, and more.
Transportation Library (Northwestern University)
Provides citations to articles in every aspect of transportation. Also has very strong coverage in criminal justice topics.
TRID (Transportation Research International Documentation)
Comprehensively covers the worldwide transportation research literature, including planning, finance, design/construction, materials, environmental issues, safety, human factors, and operations. Not included: vehicle standards/specs, patents, military transport. Combines the records from the U.S. Transportation Research Board's TRIS database and the OECD’s Joint Transport Research Centre’s ITRD Database.

Core scientific databases

ACM Digital Library
Database of articles relevant to computing and information technology from the Association for Computing Machinery. Search defaults to the ACM Full-Text Collection – you can expand your results to include the more comprehensive ACM Guide to Computing Literature.
Topics include computer technology, artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction (HCI), usability, network technologies, the IT profession, programming languages, operating systems, distributed systems, data management, data mining, big data, web design, web services, social media, and all areas of information and systems security.
ADS (Astrophysics Data System)
The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) covers three main areas: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Physics and Geophysics, and the arXiv preprints server (preprints are drafts of articles that have not yet been peer-reviewed/refereed). ADS also links out to astronomical object information, data catalogs, data archives, and more.
Agricultural & Environmental Science Collection (ProQuest)
Includes ESPM (Environmental Sciences and Pollution Management); EIS (Environmental Impact Statements); TOXLINE; and AGRICOLA (a comprehensive agricultural research database from the USDA -- ProQuest's version of AGRICOLA provides convenient links to DU's full-text subscriptions when available). Sources include scholarly journals, trade journals, newspapers and magazines, conference proceedings, reports, monographs, books, and government publications.
Biological Abstracts
An expansive index to scholarly journals in the life sciences fields, including biology, biochemistry, biotechnology, botany, pre-clinical and experimental medicine, pharmacology, zoology, agriculture, and veterinary science. Search precisely with BIOSIS indexing, MeSH terms, and CAS registry numbers. Content dates from 1926 - present.
Georef (Engineering Village/Elsevier)
The most comprehensive database in the geosciences. Covers the geology of North America since 1785 to the present, and other areas of the world since 1933. Contains references to geoscience journal articles, books, maps, conference papers, reports, and theses. Includes references to all publications of the U.S. Geological Survey.
MathSciNet
Comprehensive indexing with reviews of research articles on pure and applied mathematics, including some statistics. Covers journals, conference proceedings, and technical reports. May be searched by Mathematics Subject Classification (MSC2010) among other search options. Includes Mathematical Reviews and Current Mathematical Publications.
Medline (WOS platform)
Use the Web of Science platform to search MEDLINE, the most comprehensive medical database. This resource covers medicine, dentistry, nursing, physical therapy, biomedical research, clinical practice, administration, policy issues, and health care services. Content dates from 1950 - present.
SciFinder-n
The updated interface for Chemical Abstracts, the world's foremost resource for chemical information. Sources include scholarly journals, chemical properties and spectra, organic reactions, regulatory information, Markush structures from patents, and more. Search by topic, author, chemical identification terms (names, formulas, registry numbers), and chemical structures. Chemical literature dates from 1907 - present.
First-time users must register here before using Scifinder-n.

Economics & education

Consider an alternative perspective on your topic:

EconLit
The world's foremost source of references to economic literature.
Business Source Complete
Contains premium content of peer-reviewed, business related journals. Provides detailed company information for more than 1.1 million of the world's largest public and private companies.
ERIC (ProQuest)
The Educational Resource Information Center is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education to provide extensive access to education-related literature.

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A Guide to Engineering Research