Research Databases
How to access off-campusDatabases by subject:
Aeronautics | Applied & Computational Mechanics | Applied Mechanics | Applied Physics | Astrophysics | Biology | Chemical Engineering | Chemistry | Civil Engineering | Computation & Neural Systems | Computer Science | Control & Dynamical Systems | Earthquake Engineering | Electrical Engineering | Environmental Science & Engineering | Geology & Planetary Sciences | Humanities | Materials Science | Mathematics | Mechanical Engineering | Physics | Social SciencesTop Databases:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Note: This is not an exhaustive list. Find more databases.
ACM Digital Library
Fulltext of:
ACM periodicals & magazines: most titles from volume 1
ACM proceedings, ACM SIG conference proceedings 1991+, in some cases 1985+.
Access Science
Online version of McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology
ACD/Public Chromatography Applications Database
Contains over 4700 separations from a list of 19 column vendors.
The database can be searched by numerous chromatographic parameters, as well as by structure, substructure, and structural similarity. For example, searching for a novel compound will retrieve applications for compounds with similar structures.
ACLS Humanities E-Book
This digital collection of over 1,700 full-text titles in the Humanities is fully searchable and features unlimited multi-user access. The collection expands each year; more info
Agricola
1970+ agriculture index and abstracts from the National Agricultural Library; books and audiovisual materials as well as journal articles; more info
AIDS Clinical Trials Information Service
Current information on federally and privately funded clinical trials for AIDS patients and others infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV); includes experimental drugs; more info
America: History and Life
Index to periodicals, book chapters and theses for U.S. and Canadian history from prehistory to present. Indexes materials dating back to 1954. Selected links to full text articles.
ArchiveGrid
ArchiveGrid is important for locating historical documents, personal papers, and family histories held in archives around the world. Thousands of libraries, museums, and archives have contributed nearly a million collection descriptions to
ArchiveGrid. Researchers can identify items in each of these collections, contact archives to arrange a visit to examine materials, and order copies.
ARTFL
American and French research on the treasury of the French language; 13th to 20th century French texts; more info
Arts & Humanities Citation Index
Arts & Humanities Citation Index, 1994+; more info
ASM Alloy Phase Diagrams Center
Explore, search and view more than 28,000 binary and ternary phase diagrams and associated phase and crystal data for more than 6200 systems.
ASTM Digital Library - a searchable index to ASTM publications and standards.
Beilstein CrossFire Commander -- Beilstein Crossfire DiscoveryGate
see DiscoveryGate or Reaxys
Biography & Genealogy Master Index
Indexes current and retrospective reference sources providing international coverage of individuals - living and deceased - in all fields of activity; more info
BioOne
BioOne indexes high-impact bioscience research journals focused on biological, ecological and environmental sciences. See the Searching in BioOne tip sheet.
Books in Print
~2 million book titles -- in print, forthcoming, or declared out-of-print or out-of-stock; searchable by title, author, subject, publisher, ISBN, keywords
BRENDA
BRENDA is the main collection of enzyme functional data available to the scientific community. The enzymes are classified according to the Enzyme Commission list of enzymes.
BusinessFile ASAP
Fulltext access to a wide range of business periodicals and directories
Cambridge Structural Database (CCDC)
The Cambridge Structural Database (CSD) contains structural information on over 330,000 carbon containing molecules (<1000 atoms) and over 366,000 structures, including organics, compounds of main group elements, organometallics and metal complexes.
There is a small overlap between the CSD and the Inorganic Crystal Structure Database, in the area of molecular inorganics. See also WebCSD.
CHEMnetBASE
Provides access to the Combined Chemical Dictionary, Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, Polymers: A Property Database, Properties of Organic Compounds, Dictionary of Marine Natural Products, Dictionary of Food Compounds, and CRCPress Periodic Table Online.
Chicago Manual of Style Online
Citation Classics
Classic essays of highly cited papers, written by Eugene Garfield
Civil Engineering Database
ASCE's Electronic Information Retrieval Service to All Its Publications. Provides Access to over 100,000 Bibliographic and Abstracted Records - Current Coverage: 1970 - Present
CogNet
MIT CogNet provides online access to reference works, journals and books about the brain and cognitive science.
Combined Chemical Dictionary
Online version of: Dictionary of Organic Compounds, Dictionary of Natural Products, Dictionary of Inorganic and Organometallic Compounds, Dictionary of Drugs, and Dictionary of Analytical Reagents, Dictionary of Carbohydrates, and Dictionary of Marine Natural Products;
more info
Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography
Biography of scientists, engineers and inventors from antiquity to modern times, concentrating on their professional achievements. Illustrations
and .pdf formatting are included.
CoRR Computing Research Repository
Special-purpose search engine covering computer science research papers
CQ Congress Collection
Provides an analytical survey of the history and development; powers; personalities; current developments; and legislation considered and passed by the United States Congress Data is organized under four headings: Public Policy Legislation, Members of Congress, CQ Key Votes, The Legislative Branch.
CQ Researcher
Covers the most current and controversial issues of the day with summaries, pros and cons, bibliographies and more.
CQ Voting & Elections Collection
Provides a powerful research and reference tool on the American voter, major and minor political parties, campaigns and elections, and historical and modern races for Congress, the presidency, and governorships.
CrossRef Search
'Google' indexed fulltext of scholarly journal articles from over 1600 publishers' websites. Results are returned using the Google search and ranking
algorithms, and using the article's DOI whenever possible to link to the published article.
DOIs can be retrieved from bibliographic citations at: http://www.crossref.org/freeTextQuery
Bibliographic citations can be retrieved from DOIs at: http://dx.doi.org
Current Index to Statistics
Covers 106 "core journals", selected articles from 900 additional journals, and 8000 books; 1974 to current; more info
Current Protocols
Current Protocols contains the largest collection of authoritative, peer-reviewed, regularly-updated research methods and topical overviews available, with over 10,000 protocols spanning the life sciences.
DIPPR
DIPPR is a web-based compilation of experimental physical and thermodynamic property data for over 1,800 pure chemicals.
Data have been evaluated, correlated, and checked for thermodynamic consistency. Data sets can be displayed, along with DIPPR-approved property constants and regressed correlation coefficients for temperature-dependent properties, as well as calculation of temperature-dependent properties in any set of units.
2-D and 3-D representations of chemical structures available by clicking on the words 'Structural Formula' on the constant properties summary sheet.
(Retrieve Password)
Dissertation Abstracts
Citations 1861-, abstracts 1980-, Caltech dissertations full text 1997-;
DLD: Database of Latin Dictionaries
DTIC Public STINET (Defense Technical Information Center Scientific and Technical Information Network)
Public STINET (available free of charge) provides access to citations of unclassified unlimited documents that have been entered into DTIC's Technical Reports Collection (with some full-text). Public STINET also provides access to the Air University Library Index to Military Periodicals, Staff College Automated Military Periodical Index, DoD Index to Specifications and Standards, and Research and Development Descriptive Summaries.
Printed documents may be ordered from the National Technical Information Service (NTIS).
e-EROS
Encyclopedia of reagents for organic synthesis; Systematic and exhaustive coverage of reagents used in organic chemistry. Covers both classical reagents and the new 'designer' reagents
Earthquake Engineering Abstracts
1971+ index of world literature in earthquake engineering including technical reports, conference papers, and monographs as well as journal articles
EconLit
Provides citations for dissertations & articles in more than 620 journals, books, and working papers on economics from 1969 to present.
Educators Reference Desk
1966+ index and abstracts of education research and practice covering ERIC documents and journal articles
Encyclopedia of Inorganic Chemistry
Articles are grouped in subject areas: Main Group Elements; Transition Metals and Coordination Chemistry; Organometallic Chemistry; Bioinorganic Chemistry; Solid State, Materials, Nanomaterials and Catalysis; and General Inorganic Chemistry, Theoretical and Computational Methods.
Entrez
National Center for Biotechnology Information's search and retrieval system integrating databases of nucleotide sequences, protein sequences, macromolecular structures, whole genomes, and MEDLINE via PubMed
ERIC - Educational Resources Information Center
Provides access to more than 1.2 million education-related records of journal articles, books, conference papers, technical reports, etc. Links to full text are included, if available.
General Business File ASAP
Contains articles from more than 900 business, economic, management, trade, and industry publications. Also includes company profiles, industry descriptions and investment reports.
GeoRef
Covers the North American geology from 1785+ and world geology from 1933+; includes references to U.S. Geological Survey publications, theses & doctoral dissertations, books, maps, reports, as well as literature from more than 3,500 journals; more info
Gmelin CrossFire Commander -- Gmelin Crossfire DiscoveryGate
see DiscoveryGate or Reaxys
HighWire Press
Search and browse interfaces to all of the journals hosted by HighWire Press.
Historical Abstracts
Index and abstracts for world history from 1450 to the present excluding the United States and Canada (covered in America: History and Life). Indexes periodicals, book chapters and theses published since 1954. Selected links to full text articles.
ICSD
The ICSD (Inorganic Crystal Structure Database) is a searchable database of ~120,000 inorganic structures, including elements, compounds, minerals, and intermetallics. Display options include Unit Cell Visualization and Powder Patterns.
IEEE Xplore
Provides fulltext access to IEEE transactions, journals, magazines since 1988 (with some content back to 1952), conference proceedings since 1988 (with some content back to 1952), IEEE Standards and IEE journals, letters, magazines, and conference proceedings since 1988. See their Self-paced Tutorials
Illinois Researcher Information Service (IRIS)
Private as well as (U.S.) federal funding opportunities in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities
Information Please Almanac
Statistical, tabular, & general information on the world, U.S., history, government, biography, sports, entertainment, business, culture, science, technology, weather
INSPEC
Index and abstracts 1898-1968 produced by Institute of Electrical Engineers; includes physics, astrophysics, computer science, electrical engineering and information technology.
Iter
Index of journal articles and books on the Middle Ages and Renaissance (400-1700); more info
JSTOR
Electronic fulltext archive of 119+ academic journals; SEARCH JSTOR. about JSTOR
Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology
Fourth Edition of Kirk-Othmer includes a powerful search engine and intuitive user interface
Knovel
Provides the ability to search ~2,000 leading reference works and databases from over 40 international publishers and professional societies through a single interface. Caltech does not have an electronic subscription, but Knovel allows free searching and display of a list of appropriate books (many of which are available in the Caltech Library System).
LexisNexis Academic Universe
Provides access to a wide range of news, business, legal, and reference information
LexisNexis Congressional Universe
Provides access to legislative and Congressional information
LexisNexis Statistical Universe
Provides access to a wide range of statistical information
Library of Latin Texts
Latin texts from antiquity, early Christian, medieval and modern periods. Includes the Database of Latin Dictionaries.
LIterature ONline (LION)
Provides texts, criticisms, and search tool for English and American literature. Texts are fully searchable and are linked to more than 170 online journals.
Literature Resource Center
Provides provides access to biographies, bibliographies, and critical analyses of authors from every age and discipline. Combines Gale's core literary databases, including Contemporary Authors and Contemporary Literary Criticism, in a single service. Continually updated.
LitFinder
Contains over 150,000 full-text poems and 800,000+ poetry citations, as well as short stories, speeches, and plays.
Marquis Who's Who on the Web
Biographical data on people from around the world, 1985-current. Updated daily. Incorporates Who's Who in American History.
MathSciNet
1940+ mathematical reviews and summaries of journal articles and books, more info; For earlier material (1868-1930) see also Jahrbuch Project (in German and English)
Medline (OLDMEDLINE) included in PubMed
Melvyl
University of California's union catalog of books and journals at all UC campuses as well as at numerous other major California academic institutions
MetaBibCatsWiki
World directory of Online multinational and national union catalogs
MLA Bibliography
Modern Language Association International Bibliography; more info
Monumenta Germaniae Historica
A collection of medieval historical sources; many of the principal primary documents for the study of medieval Europe;
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
The NTRS provides access to NASA's current and historical technical literature ... approximately 500K aerospace
related citations, 90K full-text online documents, and 111K images and videos. Information includes: conference
papers, images, journal articles, photos, meeting papers, movies, patents, research reports, and technical videos.
NTRS integrates three separate information collections through a common search interface:
NACA Collection: Citations and reports from NACA period (1915 to 1958).
NASA Collection: Citations and documents from 1958 to the present.
NIX Collection: Citations and images, photos, movies and videos downloaded from the NASA Image eXchange
NIST Data Gateway
Easy access to NIST scientific and technical data. Search by keyword, property, or substance name across dozens of NIST databases
NLM Gateway
A single Web interface that searches multiple National Library of Medicine retrieval systems; more info
NTIS
U.S. government reports and complementary materials from international sources, 1964+. Many records include links to the full-text publication on an agency's web site, or can be downloaded directly from the NTIS archival copy for a nominal charge.
Optics InfoBase is a freely searchable database of all OSA journal articles (since 1917), which also contains recent proceedings from OSA conferences. Caltech only subscribes to the OSA journal combination #1 (which does not include the OSA Conference Proceedings or the OSA Archive journal volumes).
Oxford English Dictionary
the most comprehensive and exhaustive English language dictionary
PGM (Platinum Group Metals) Database
Collection of published and internal company data covering physical properties, phase diagrams and characteristics of platinum group metals and their alloys.
Philosopher's Index
Index and abstracts of books and journals in philosophy and related fields
Polymer Data Handbook (retrieve password)
PROLA
Physical Review Online Archive. Fulltext [Phys Rev A-D v1-56 (1970-1997)] [Phys Rev E v47-56 (1993-1997)] [Phys Rev Letters v1-79 (1958-1997)] [Phys Rev, Series 1 v1-35 (1893-1912)] [Phys Rev, Series 2 v1-188 (1913-1969)] [Rev Mod Phys v1-69 (1929-1997)]; more info
ProQuest Dissertations and Theses
Citations 1861-, abstracts 1980-, Caltech dissertations full text 1997-
PubChem
PubChem contains the chemical structures of small organic molecules and information on their biological activities
PubMed (Medline)
1950+ biomedical and related index and abstracts; PubMed's advantages include links to molecular structure, DNA sequence, and protein sequence databases, and direct links to some full-text journal articles; more info (1), more info (2)
Quakeline
Index and abstracts of journal articles, conference papers, technical reports, maps, and videotapes on earthquakes, earthquake engineering, natural hazard mitigation, and related topics
RAND California
California and U.S. public policy issues with an emphasis on statistics
Reaxys
Reaxys is a web-based search and retrieval system for chemical compounds, bibliographic data and chemical reactions.
It is based on Beilstein, Gmelin and an "Organic" Patent Database (US 1976+ and EP, WO 1978+)
Royal Society of Chemistry. Search RSC Journals
Search interface to the Royal Society of Chemistry's journal archive, 1841+
Science Accelerator
Science Accelerator provides gateway access to resources the DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI):
DOE R&D Accomplishments; DOE R&D Project Summaries; DOepatents; E-print Network; Energy Citations Database (ERDA & Nuclear Science Abstracts); Energy Science and Technology Software Center; EnergyFiles; Federal R&D Project Summaries (NIH, DOE, and NSF); (DOE) Information Bridge; Science Conference Proceedings
Science.gov
Searches across 45 databases from 14 government science agencies, as well as 2,000 Web sites, with results in relevancy rank, date, title or author order as well as clusters. Searches can also be limited to individual agencies or science websites by topic. Special collections include: Image Search, Diversity Education, Federal R&D Summaries, Internships & Fellowships, Other National Science Portals, Science Conferences, & Taxonomies and Thesauri.
Safari Books Online
Full-text access to ebook titles by O'Reilly and other publishers on many programming languages and technologies.
ScienceDirect
Search more than 2500 journals and 11000 books, primarily science and engineering, published by Elsevier. Full-text is available for the journals we subscribe to, but not the entire database.
SciFinder Scholar
Chemical Abstracts Service's databases including Chemical Abstracts, CAS Registry file, CASREACT (organic/organometallic reactions), patents, and chemical suppliers
Scitation
Scitation is an article database comprising more than 2M documents from 200 scholarly journals, magazines, conference proceedings, and other special publications. Publishers, totalling 28, include: AIP, APS, ASME, ASCE, ECS, IEE/IET, SPIE, SIAM. Database search options include Scitation, SPIN, Scitation+SPIN, PubMed/Medline, & Scitopia.
Scitopia.org - A federated search portal for the entire electronic libraries of the leading science and technology society publishers. It includes three million documents, including conference papers, spanning 150 years.
Social Science Citation Index
Now part of Web of Knowledge
SpringerMaterials - The Landolt-Börnstein Database
Provides data on substance properties, functional relationships and numerical data. Searching is free and Caltech Library has volumes published thru 1995. Some sections provide literature references to original sources.
The Statesman's Yearbook Online
Annual coverage of history, politics, economics, trade and infrastructure for the countries of the world. Provides extensive further reading lists and web links for further research.
Synthesis
Synthesis Digital Library of
Engineering and Computer Science, published by Morgan & Claypool, provides access to lectures on research topics in Engineering and Computer Science
Thomas Register
Information on 156,000+ U.S. and Canadian manufacturers including 7700+ catalogs; searchable by product type and brand name (Retrieve Password)
Toxicology & Environmental Health Information
TOXLINE & TOXNET including Environmental Protection Agency databases
TRIS Online
1960+
Index of transportation research covering books, journal articles, technical reports, environmental impact statements and governmental & association publications. Also provides links to: TRB Research in Progress (RIP); International Transport Research Documentation (ITRD); Transportation Libraries Catalog and NTIS. more info
Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry
A state-of-the-art reference work detailing the science and technology in all areas of industrial chemistry; contains nearly 1000 major articles, written by some 3,000 authors who are experts in their fields and affiliated to leading chemical companies or research institutes; more info
Ulrich's International Periodicals Directory
Provides data on over 210,000 regularly published and irregularly issued serials including purchasing and contact information (conventional and electronic) for over 90,000 publishers in 200 countries.
UniProt
The UniProt Consortium is comprised of the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB), and the Protein Information Resource (PIR). Until recently, EBI and SIB together produced Swiss-Prot and TrEMBL, while PIR produced the Protein Sequence Database (PIR-PSD). The UniProt databases (UniPARC, UniProtKB, UniREF) are built upon the pooled overlapping and complementary resources, efforts and expertise of these pioneereing efforts; UniProt FAQ
Vapor phase infrared spectral library
High-resolution (0.1 cm-1) quantitative pressure-broadened infrared spectra of several hundred (primarily organic) gas-phase compounds.
Washington Information Directory Online
Brings together CQ's wealth of contact and descriptive information on federal government offices, regulatory agencies, congressional committees, judicial offices, state government offices, public interest groups, nonprofits, international organizations.
Web of Knowledge (Web of Science)
Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIsearch), 1945+
Social Science Citation Index, 1956+
Arts & Humanities Citation Index, 1994+
Conference Proceedings Citation Index (CPCI), 1990+
WebCASPER - Integrated Science and Engineering Resources Data System
The WebCASPAR database provides easy access to a large body of statistical data resources for science and engineering (S&E) at U.S. academic institutions. WebCASPAR emphasizes S&E,
but its data resources also provide information on non-S&E fields and higher education in general.
Wiley Interscience Current Protocols
Current Protocols contains the largest collection of authoritative, peer-reviewed, regularly-updated research methods and topical overviews available, with over 10,000 protocols spanning the life sciences.
WorldCat
OCLC Online Union Catalog of books and other materials in libraries worldwide, as well as articles and conference proceedings.
Zentralblatt MATH
Limited, free access to the Zentralblatt MATH database
