All guides: Applied Science: Physics: Key resources

Recommended databases

Databases are collections of resources, primarily journal articles, but they can also contain conference papers, videos, eBooks, reports, images and more. Many databases specialise in a specific subject area, so you'll know when you're searching the database you will find material relevant to your studies.

AIP Publishing
Contains a digital book collection that covers areas as diverse as materials science, biophysics, optics and photonics, chemical physics, mathematical physics, and applied physics and engineering. AIP Publishing's books drive discovery, enable learning, and encourage best practice in research and scientific analysis.
arXiv
A free distribution service and an open-access archive for scholarly articles in fields including physics, mathematics, quantitative finance, and statistics.
Inspec Direct
Stay up-to-date with the latest in engineering and physics through Inspec Direct resources.
Note: Access is now via IET. It was previously via Engineering Village.
ProQuest SciTech Premium Collection
Full-text journals with detailed indexing of global literature on engineering and technology. Areas covered include aerospace engineering, materials science, and civil engineering.
PubMed
A well-known database that contains a large collection of resources in the area of science including physics. I order to limit search results to review articles, select ‘Review’ at the ‘Filter Your Results’ option, which appears to the right of the search results listing.
ANSTI: Australian Nuclear Science & Technology Information (Informit)
Collated by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, ANSTI covers science, technology, and physics. The information is authored by Australians or published in Australia.
SciFinder
Provides the most accurate and extensive science-related information including: journal articles and patents, substance data, chemical data, and physics literature.
Scopus (Elsevier)
Includes access to a large percentage of peer-reviewed journals across most science disciplines, including reputable physics resources.

To limit search results and review articles, use the ‘Document Types’ option at the side of the search results listing.
Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics)
Enables users to search current and retrospective multidisciplinary information from high impact research journals. It has a focus on scientific literature, including physics.
MathSciNet (AMS)
Offers subject access in all areas of mathematical sciences, including mathematics, statistics, as well as mathematically related research in physics.

Astro physics Data systems
Online database of over eight million astronomy and physics papers.

Knovel
This multidisciplinary database is one of the most reputable databases in the field of engineering, science and technology. It contains a searchable database of handbooks, data sets and reference sources in most areas of physics.

Key standards databases

ASTM Compass
Contains ASTM International published specification documents, test methods, classifications, practices, and guides describing the characteristics of materials, systems, products and services. Using ASTM Compass

For more information on ASTM standards please visit this page of the standards subject guide: https://rmit.libguides.com/standards/materials_testing

Australian Standards Online (Intertek Inform)
Full-text access to the majority of Australian Standards, Draft Standards and some Handbooks. Royalty issues prohibit access to approximately 100 of the total 6,500 documents. ISO and IEC indexes are available.

For more information on Australian standards please visit this page of the standards subject guide: https://rmit.libguides.com/standards/australian

Search engines

Microsoft Academic
Includes post-search filtering options not currently available in Google Scholar.
BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine)
Focusing on academic repositories, BASE provides sophisticated search functionality not available in Google Scholar. The Advanced Search option allows the user to specify where the search term occurs (eg. Title, Author, Subject Headings, Publisher). Results can be filtered by Document Type (eg. thesis). The Browsing option filters by discipline using the library Dewey Decimal Classification Code. Dewey results can also be filtered by Document Type.
Semantic Scholar
Machine indexing of papers in computer science and neuroscience. At this stage some coverage of mathematics and geospatial science is also included and there are plans to extend the discipline scope to include biology, physics and the remaining hard sciences. Citations and references in the text are used to identify links between papers as well as the most influential papers. Records also highlight key phrases found in similar papers.
Google Scholar
Searches scholarly publications from university, government and academic publisher sites. In the Google Scholar settings update Library links option to RMIT University to improve access to a range of RMIT-subscribed e-journals.

Academic study skills

Assignments: get started

Assignments: get started is your guide to finding, evaluating and referencing sources of information.

Learning lab

Access the Learning lab to develop skills in writing, critical thinking, assessment tasks and much more.

Library subject guides

Applied Science: Physics

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Recommended databases

Key standards databases

Search engines

Academic study skills