Research Guides: Library Research Guide for Graduate Students in Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences: Databases

Article Express

Request electronic delivery of journal articles and book chapters not already available online free of charge.

Known Article Searching

Do you know the Digital Object Identifier (DOI)?

Do you have other information about the article (author, article title, journal title, etc.)?

Staying Current

Many journals and research databases provide automated alert options that help you stay current on your topic of interest.

Subscribe to table of content alerts of journals to receive the table of contents of the latest issue. Visit the publisher's website to register.

Most research databases allow to subscribe to alerts based on saved search strategies. Alerts will notify you when new content matching your search strategy is added to the database.

Using Research Databases to Find Articles

Many of the articles you find in a research database will be available in full-text. Depending on the database, full-text content will be available directly in the database (follow links to PDF and/or HTML) or by choosing the OSU "Find it!" button which will lead you to the full-text article and/or a link to the publisher's website.

If you don’t see the OSU "Find it!" button, it is likely that you are not connected to OSU library resources (see Off-campus Access information for accessing licensed resources from off-campus).

The Online Journals List or the OSU Library Catalog are usually the best places to check that we have electronic access to the journal and article you need.

Use "Article Express" for obtaining copies of any article for which we don't have e-access.

Google Scholar note: To enable the OSU "Find It!" service in Google Scholar from off-campus, users must use Scholar Settings to ensure routing through the proxy: Go to Google Scholar > Click on the menu button (top left) > Click on Settings and then on Library Links > Search for Ohio State University > Check the box beside The Ohio State University Libraries-Find it at OSU > Click Save. In the Google Scholar results list, follow the Find It! link to determine if online access is provided by OSU Libraries or OhioLINK. This link may be under MORE for some results. A Find It! link may not be offered for every available link, as Google Scholar may offer several sources for the same citation.

Database Tutorials

The Web of Science platform connects the Web of Science Core Collection to regional citation indexes, patent data, specialized subject indexes, and an index of research data sets, all in all totaling over 33,000 journals.

Tutorials and training options are available from the Clarivate Analytics Training Portal.

Scopus is one of the largest bibliographic databases containing abstracts and citations for academic journal articles. The database covers nearly 22,000 titles from over 5,000 publishers, of which 20,000 are peer-reviewed journals in the scientific, technical, medical, and social sciences. Scopus offers a variety of features and smart tools to help you stay current with research and authors, track citations and manage your account or profile.

Watch this video to learn how to use Scopus.

There is also a quick reference guide that you might find useful. For more specific help, check out these tutorials.

Academic Search Complete is a multi-disciplinary full-text database, with more than 5,300 full-text periodicals, including 4,400 peer-reviewed journals. In addition to full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for more than 9,300 journals and a total of 10,900 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc.

Watch this tutorial on the basics of the EBSCOhost interface use.

Additional search tips:

Use the Advanced Search in order to use multiple search boxes
If you don’t get enough results, try to change “Select a Field (optional)” to “TX All Text” in your Find box which will search the entire text of articles available in full text, not just titles, abstracts, and subject terms
You may need to use different search terms. For example, you can try to use the topics listed at the left under “Refine Search” to find additional terms to describe your topic
You can also use the Thesaurus (on top of the page above the search box) to find the proper subject headings for your search concepts and add to your search
Try limiting your search results either on the initial search screen or by using the “Refine Search” feature. For example, you can limited your results list to display only scholarly resources by checking “Scholarly (Peer Reviewed)”
See Help for more advanced searching techniques and additional tips

Watch this tutorial on how to use the advanced searching on the EBSCOhost interface.

CAB Abstracts is the most comprehensive source of international research information in agriculture, environment and related applied life sciences. Produced by CABI Publishing, CAB Abstracts covers over 8,000 rigorously selected serials, books, and conference proceedings across the applied life sciences.

Tutorials and training options are available from the Clarivate Analytics Training Portal.

Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine by Google that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. The Google Scholar index includes most peer-reviewed online academic journals and books, conference papers, theses and dissertations, preprints, abstracts, technical reports, and other scholarly literature, including court opinions and patents. Use Google Scholar to find scholarly articles and books, verify citations, and explore related resources. When books are available through Google Books, some of their content may be available online. Important note: Setting Ohio State University in Scholar Preferences will help you make direct connections to online sources provided by the library. In your search results, you can connect to a full-text version if there is a linked option following the item’s title. If you’ve enabled Ohio State Library links (Settings > Library links > "The Ohio State University Libraries", a Find It @OSU link is shown to provide a link to full-text or to help you request the item if it’s not available online via interlibrary services.

Additional search tips:

Authors related to your search are shown in the left column to help you find related content.The Recent Articles link allows you to limit your search results by date.
Advanced Scholar Search provides additional search fields such as author, publication, and date, as well as phrase matching and word exclusion. You can also limit by subject area.
More search tips can be found here.

Recommended Research Databases

Web of Science (All Databases search) This link opens in a new window
Web of Science (formerly Web of Knowledge) is a cross-searchable interface for numerous Thompson Reuters databases including: Web of Science Core Collection, BIOSIS Citation Index, BIOSIS Previews, Derwent Innovations Index, and Journal Citation Reports.
Scopus This link opens in a new window
Scopus is a citation database of peer-reviewed literature and quality web sources with smart tools to track analyze and visualize research. Tools to sort, refine and quickly identify results help researchers focus on the outcome of their work.
CABI (Web of Science) This link opens in a new window
CAB Abstracts covers research and development literature in the fields of agriculture, forestry, human health, human nutrition, animal health and the management and conservation of natural resources. Includes CAB Abstracts Archive. Global Health is a public health database that provides information on international health, biomedical life sciences, non-communicable diseases, public health nutrition, food safety and hygiene, and much more. This database contains more than 1.2 million records dating back to 1973.
BIOSIS Previews This link opens in a new window
BIOSIS Previews, including Biological Abstracts, contains references to journal articles, reports, literature reviews, conference papers, patents, and book synopses in the life sciences. Coverage includes 5500 journals and 1500 international meetings in agriculture, biology, biotechnology, environment, wildlife, ecology, agriculture, forestry and the health sciences.
Agricola (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Contains the current file of the AGRICOLA (Agricultural Online Access) database, which provides citations to agricultural literature acquired by the National Agricultural Library and cooperating institutions, and subfiles of related subjects, such as food and nutrition, agricultural economics, parasitology, forestry, aquaculture, wildlife, and environmental science supplied by information centers.

Food Science and Technology Abstracts (EBSCO)
Produced by the International Food Information Service (IFIS), Food Science and Technology Abstracts (FSTA) covers all areas of food science and technology, including basic food science, nutrition, biotechnology, toxicology, packaging, and engineering.
ERIC (EBSCO version)
The ERIC database is a source of education information, containing abstracts of documents and journal articles on education research and practice. The database covers descriptions and evaluations of programs, research reports and surveys, curriculum and teaching guides, instructional materials, position papers, and resource materials.
ASABE Technical Library
Provides access to all recent technical documents published by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers.
AgEcon Search
AgEcon indexes full text scholarly research in the field of agricultural economics including sub disciplines such as agribusiness, food supply, natural resource economics, environmental economics, policy issues, agricultural trade, and economic development. The database is searchable by any words used in the citations and abstracts; the full text papers are available in PDF format.

Off-campus Access

Licensed online library resources are restricted from viewing outside the campus network. There are several ways to access licensed resources from off-campus.

Use the off-campus sign-in through the library homepage for the most reliable way to access licensed resources from off-campus. You will be prompted for your name.# and password.

Publishers/vendors may permit access directly from their website with Ohio State credentials in which case you can use proxy authentication to access the resource. Place this string at the beginning of the vendor’s URL: https://proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/login?qurl=http://[vendor’s URL. Example: https://proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/login?qurl=http://www.scopus.com/home.url. You will be prompted for your name.# and password.