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Environment, Geology, and Natural Resources

Resources on environmental topics, geology, and natural resourses at Ball State University Libraries. You can access this guide directly by going to https://bsu.libguides.com/EGNR

Tools (Databases, etc.)

Recommended databases and interfaces (ie aggregators)

Ball State University Libraries provides access to authoritative and accurate sources of information on peer-reviewed and otherwise scholarly publications through the Databases page.  Remember that part of your tuition goes to pay for such resources and services- you do have a subscription to journals like Nature through your status as a student at Ball State.

The Databases pages can be viewed in a couple of different ways. You can look at an A-Z list of all the databases we offer access to or you can choose a subject (e.g. Science or Health) and just look at databases relevant to your field of interest. 

For instance, go to the Databases page and click the Databases by Subject link on the left hand navigation bar. Then click on the Science menu item.  This will bring up only those databases concerned with the hard sciences including mathematics.  Another subject area that may apply to EGNR researchers would be Technology.  Remember: just because the database doesn’t have your topic in its name doesn’t mean it can’t be relevant to what you are doing.  Do not neglect a source because it does not seem to fit your conception of what you want.

Discovery Tools (to begin with):
OneSearch
Web of Science
ScienceDirect
Ingenta Connect

More focused/in depth:
AGRICOLA
Biological Abstracts (will be same interface as Web of Science)
Biological & Agricultural Index Plus
bioRxiv (an open-access, preprint repository)
EPA Toxics Release Explorer (database allows you generate reports on releases, transfers, and waste managed)
GeoRef
GeoScienceWorld (GeoRef plus 45 more titles)
GreenFILE
IEEE Xplore Digital Library
JSTOR (over 100 full-text journals on botany, biometry, limnology, ecology, etc.)
PAIS International
Publications Warehouse (a free index to publications of the United States Geological Survey)
Public Library of Science (PLoS) (an open access publisher)
SciFindern (chemistry-focused but also covers lots of biomedical sources and accesses Medline)

General Research & Reference:
Oxford Reference Online
Academic Search Complete (an EBSCO database)
Annual Reviews
Science.gov

Other useful tools:
WorldCat
BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine)
Abbreviations.com (find full journal titles from abbreviations)

(sample DOI for ILL: 10.1016/S1389-0352(00)00005-2)