For help with any of these resources, contact Kevin McDonough, liaison to the Biology Department, through the IM window on the right, email (kmcdonou@nmu.edu), or phone (906-227-2118).
Books and E-references
Library Catalog
Contains the books, government documents, and audio-visual materials in Olson Library and three other libraries in the U.P. Books are a great place to get an overview on a subject and help narrow your topic to an answerable question. Also, many books provide links into the journal literature through the inclusion of one or more reference lists.
Birds of North America Online
Provides detailed scientific information for each of the 716 species of birds nesting in the USA and Canada. Account contents are updated frequently, with online-coordinated contributions from researchers, citizen scientists, and designated reviewers and editors.
Mammalian Species (1969 - 2001) ; 2000 - present
Mammalian Species is published by the American Society of Mammalogists with 25-35 individual species accounts issued each year. Each uniform account summarizes the current understanding of the biology of an individual species including systematics, distribution, fossil history, genetics, anatomy, physiology, behavior, ecology, and conservation. The 2000 to the present issues are in the database BioOne. The link provided will take you to a database search screen with the ISBN to Mammalian Species on the first line. Enter the species or common name on the second line.
E-reference Shelf
This source includes electronic reference sources relevant to biology, including specialized encyclopedias, dictionaries, and more.
Journal Articles
Core Databases
Biological Sciences (Cambridge)
Indexes a wide range of research in biomedicine, biotechnology, zoology and ecology, and some aspects of agriculture and veterinary science. Contains references to journals, conference proceedings, technical reports, monographs and selected books and patents. Coverage is from 1982 to present.
Medline
The premier database for biomedical research and the clinical sciences. Very good coverage of journal literature in cellular and molecular biology and biochemistry. Contains citations from more than 4,800 biomedical journals published, dating back to the mid-1960's.
Wildlife and Ecology Studies Worldwide
Covers all aspects of wildlife and wildlife management. Major topic areas include studies of individual species, habitat types, hunting, economics, wildlife behavior, management techniques, diseases, parasites, and more. Includes coverage from Central and South America. Includes references to journals; unpublished research reports, field studies, and surveys from U.S. state agencies; proceedings of conferences and symposia; websites; government reports; grey literature; books; theses and dissertations. Coverage from 1935 to present.
JSTOR*full text
The complete, searchable, full text articles from approximately 160 core scholarly journals (every issue up to the last 1-5 years). This is not a very large database and is meant to browse journals by name and date. However, you can search across particular subject areas, which contain several journals per area.
Google Scholar Contains peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations. Provides unique features, such as relevance ranking of your results, the ability to find "Related Articles", and the opportunity to see other papers that have cited a specific paper. A couple of drawbacks include limited searching capabilities (full text or title), and no consistent links directly to the article.
CrossSearch
CrossSearch is an interface to the library's databases, regardless of provider. The link provided here will search all of the resources on this guide except Birds of North America, the Library catalog, and Google Scholar. By providing this convenience CrossSearch lacks some features (or incorporates them inconsistently) of the individual databases. If you don't know what database is best for your topic, CrossSearch is a good starting point.
Supporting Databases
Agricola
Multidisciplinary index reflecting the contents of the National Agricultural Library and other agricultural and scientific institutions. Covers all aspects of agriculture and allied disciplines, including animal and veterinary sciences, entomology, plant sciences, forestry, aquaculture and fisheries, agricultural economics, food and human nutrition, and earth and environmental sciences. References to articles in journals and magazines, books, book chapters, theses, patents, computer software, audiovisual materials, and technical reports. Dates of coverage from 1970 to present.
BioOne*full text
69+ full-text journals published by small societies and non-commercial publishers. Journals tend to emphasize plant, animal, and ecological research.
Geobase
A multidisciplinary database providing citations and abstracts to topics in physical geography, ecology, geography, oceanography, geomechanics, and international development studies.
Plant Sciences (Cambridge)
Focuses on all scientific aspects of plants, especially pathology, symbiosis, biochemistry, genetics, biotechnology, techniques and environmental biology. Contains journal articles ranging in date from 1994 to the present.
