Chemistry Information Sources

The discipline of chemistry covers a wide spectrum of inquiry: organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, chemical engineering, and analytical chemistry are just four of the many disciplines and specialties that fall within the boundaries of "chemistry."

Like "biology," the word "chemistry" struggles to encompass the entire range of research and discovery that it relates to, including the life sciences, physics, environmental sciences, computer science, and even math. 

The reason it's important to know how far chemistry's influence extends is so you know that researching a chemistry topic will likely lead you to and through sources in many other fields. To uncover crucial information, you need to be open to the other places and disciplines you might end up needing!

Chemistry Information at the IUP Libraries

Here at the IUP Libraries we offer many different ways to research chemistry-related topics and lots of resources to get you started on your research projects. You'll find several databases offering journal articles from major peer-reviewed journals; an extensive collection of books and reference handbooks for chemistry, as well as professional librarians to support you when you use the library. 

The library website - www.iup.edu/library - is the hub that connects all of our print and electronic resources. From there, you can search our library catalog (our books, journals, eBooks, and more), contact a librarian for immediate help, learn about the services we offer, or do a deep dive into our subject-focused databases.

Discovery

If you're just starting out, the Discovery Search option will search through almost all of the resources we have, and bring back matching hits of every type of item: books, articles, videos, you name it.

Why Use It?

When you're starting out - especially in an unfamiliar or new subject area - it's helpful to get a feel for what's out there. Discovery search helps you develop a "big picture" view:

• The type of materials available (books, videos, articles, dissertations, etc.)

• The level of the material (are they highly technical? is it mostly popular reading?)

• The availability of the material (is it in the library, or electronic?)

Library Catalog

This option performs a more focused search into materials held in the library. It will include our books, journals, videos, and other holdings within our collections.

Why Use It?

Selecting this option narrows the search to items within our holdings only (whereas the Discovery search throws a broader net). If you're looking to see if we own a book in print or electronic format, or whether we subscribe to a journal, this is the option to use.

E-Journal Titles

Searching using the E-Journal title option will tell you whether we subscribe to a journal electronically - and if so, you can use the information there to discover what database the journal articles can be found in.

Why Use It?

When you've found a reference to an article that sounds like a good item for your research, it's very handy to search our e-journals to see if we have the journal the article appears in. If so, you may be able to get the article immediately.

What to Watch Out For

This search only looks for journal titles. So when you put in a search, make sure to use the title of the journal, not the title of the article or keywords from the article. For instance, if you wanted to check on this reference:

Blaise Cronin, "The Mother of All Myths," Library Journal 126, no. 3 (Feb 2001): 144

You want to search for the journal title Library Journal.

Use the search below to search within the IUP Libraries for articles, books, e-books, and more.