Literature Search Databases

Literature Searches inside the Library

A number of online Literature Search Databases including GeoRef and Petroleum Abstracts are available for use by Fellows and Corporate Affiliates within the Library. Library staff can also carry out searches on their behalf. For details of this service see our Literature Searches page in the Services section of our Library website.

Free Literature Search Databases

The following websites include free (or partly free) online databases that can be used for literature searches. The content of each of these is different, some are specialist and others contain a variety of science subjects.

• British Library Direct
• Energy citations database - citations and documents are made publicly available by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
• GeoScienceWorld - only the e-journals hosted on this site are searchable here
• Google Scholar
• Lyell Collection - Geological Society publications only
• MinAbs online - contains mineralogical abstracts only.
• OnePetro - petroleum, oil and gas only. Articles can be downloaded from this site for a fee, but abstracts are free.
• Sageolit - African geological literature database
• SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) - while mainly covering astronomy/astrophysics, this is useful for geochemistry & tectonics.
• ScienceResearch.com
• Scirus
• Scitopia.org
• WorldWideScience