15 Recommended Databases by Discipline
When you are conducting a literature review for a research project (499 project, Master’s or PhD) you often need to search in multiple places to find all of the information you need. No single database contains every relevant article. In interdisciplinary work, it is particularly important to search in multiple databases.
Once you have developed a good search strategy, it is easy to convert that strategy from one database to another.
This page contains recommended databases for different disciplines of physics. It is recommended to search both general physics databases as well as discipline specific databases.
General Physics
The databases listed here cover physics and the many sub-disciplines of physics. These databases will be a good source for all physics research.
Top Recommendations:
- arXiv: arXiv.org is an electronic archive and distribution server for open access preprint papers in physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology and statistics.
- Web of Science: A major multidisciplinary database for the sciences and the social sciences, as well as a great research metrics tool. Contains coverage from the year 1900 to the present.
Other Recommendations:
- Inspec: A database covering material in the fields of physics, electrical engineering and electronics, computers and control engineering, and information technology
- Scopus: The world’s largest interdisciplinary literature database, including over 67 million journal records. Especially strong in science, engineering, technology, and medicine, with coverage from .
- CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics: The CRC Handbook is a comprehensive reference material containing property information and physical constants. Coverage includes physical constants of organic compounds, chemical properties, spectroscopy, atomic, molecular and optical physics, nuclear and particle physics, properties of solids, polymer properties, geophysics, astronomy, acoustics, health and safety information, and more.
Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Astrophysics Data System (ADS): ADS is a digital library portal for researchers in astronomy and physics. ADS contains more than 13 million records covering publications in Astronomy and Astrophysics, Physics, and the arXiv preprints.
- CDS Portal: The Strasbourg Astronomical Data Center (CDS) hosts the SIMBAD astronomical database; the VizieR astronomical catalogue service. and the Aladin interactive sky atlas. The CDS Portal searches these databases simultaneously using either object name or coordinates. CDS is best when searching for information and literature about specific astronomical objects.
- SIMBAD: SIMBAD is the world reference database for the identification of astronomical objects. SIMBAD provides basic data, cross-identifications, bibliography and measurements for astronomical objects. SIMBAD can be queried by object name, coordinates and various criteria.
- VizieR: VizieR provides the most complete library of