Research Guides: Mechanical Engineering: Research Databases

Google Scholar Tips

Google Scholar is a freely available resource, but most publishers do not provide free access to the full text of their journals. The following steps can help you to find the full text articles to which the MSU Libraries subscribe:

When off-campus, first log into the MSU Virtual Private Network before clicking on a database.
This will give you the same access off-campus as on-campus and will help to ensure that you can access all of the journals that the library subscribes to.
Use the link to Google Scholar that is on the library’s website.
Click on the title of the article result in Google Scholar
If the library has paid for the content, you may be able to access it directly. Also, the article may come up if the author has posted it to their website (especially for federal employees). Links to author-posted versions may also appear next to article title.
Click on “Find It@MSState Libraries”
This will pull up the “Find It” screen that you see when searching other databases, such as CAB Abstracts.
Search the article title in the Discovery database and click on any full text link or the "Find It" button.

Research Databases

Listed below are databases that you may find useful for your research. For a complete listing of all of MSU Libraries' online databases, click here.
If the MSU Libraries does not provide access to a journal article or other item that you need, you may order it via Interlibrary Loan.

ACM Digital Library
The full text collection of all Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) publications, including journals, conference proceedings, technical magazines, newsletters and books.
IEEE Xplore
IEEE Xplore digital library provides access to scientific and technical content published by the IEEE and its publishing partners. There are more than four-million full-text documents from some of the world's most highly cited publications in electrical engineering, computer science and electronics.
Computer Source (EBSCO)
Computer Source provides researchers with the latest information and current trends in high technology. This database offers full text for nearly 300 publications and indexing and abstracts for nearly 450 publications.

Tutorial: http://support.ebsco.com/help/?int=ehost&lang=en&feature_id=Databases&TOC_ID=Always&SI=0&BU=0&GU=1&PS=0&dbs=ckh
MathSciNet
Based on Mathematical Reviews, MathSciNet is a database offering access to reviews, abstracts, and bibliographic information of the mathematical sciences literature.

Tutorial: http://www.ams.org/mathscinet/help/full_search_help_full.html
arXiv
Open access to more than 1.2 million e-prints in Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Quantitative Biology, Quantitative Finance, and Statistics

CiteSeerX
"CiteSeerx is an evolving scientific literature digital library and search engine that has focused primarily on the literature in computer and information science."

ScienceDirect
ScienceDirect is the portal to retrieve Elsevier eJournals and eBooks. (MSU does not have full-text access to all Elsevier journals and books.)
Scopus
Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature including scientific journals, books, and conference proceedings.

Tutorial: http://info.scopus.com
Google Scholar
Provides a Google search of scholarly content and literature across many disciplines and sources, including theses, books, abstracts and articles. Set Google preferences to access full-text via the MSU Libraries many databases and journals.

Tutorial: http://library.msstate.edu/content/templates/?a=884

Dissertations & Theses (Proquest)
This is a database of theses and dissertations from throughout the US and some foreign institutions. For more relevant results, change search fields from Anywhere to “Anywhere Except Full Text”
To search MSU's electronic theses and dissertations, search the MSU ETD Database .

Tips for finding the full text

To find journal articles, you need to use the library's online databases . In the databases, you can conduct keyword, author, title, or subject searching.

Always use the Find It button for possible full text online. Examine any holdings statements to see if we have the volume and issue that the article appears in.
If no full-text available online, then use the Find It button to connect to the library's online catalog to see if the library has the journal in print format, so you can locate the article in the library.
If the library doesn't have the article online OR in print, use Interlibrary Loan to get it from another library.

(Note: Many authors post versions of their articles online. So you may be able to find what you need through a Google or Google Scholar search.)