Yale University Library Research Guides: Biology and General Life Sciences Resources at Yale: Journals and Databases

Locating Journals

Yale Library's catalog has a filter for Journals & Newspapers, which will limit your results to search only for serial publications. You will have your best results if you change the search drop-down menu to the right of the search box from "All Fields" to "Journal Title."

Here is a blank search with the filters pre-applied for you. This will show you both print and online journals. Keep in mind that journals that are out-of-print or from smaller societies may only have their back files in print. You can use Scan and Deliver (available on the item page) for the articles you need.

In addition to the library catalog, we list all available online versions on the Online Journal Page. Pay attention to the date ranges for each available listing — sometimes, we do not have access to all of the back file or (rarely) the most recent 12 months.

The best way to look up any journal in the catalog is to visit https://search.library.yale.edu/catalog.

If you are searching for the best journals to publish in, the Journal Citation Reports can help you find options for your article.

American Chemical Society CAS Source Index Search Tool
An online resource used to identify and confirm journal titles and abbreviations for publications indexed by CAS since 1907. Useful for taking abbreviations in a citation you have and identifying the journal they are from.

Databases

Our subscription databases ingest information about articles published in scientific journals, and they analyze that information to create value-added tools like abstract databases (no full text, but you can look up both online and print-only articles) and full-text databases. Some of our databases even enhance the metadata on specific topics to make them especially attractive for researchers looking to take their searches to the next level.

Databases also, generally speaking, provide transparency in their selection criteria and title lists. Some, such as BIOSIS or the Web of Science, have a reputation among journals as being a great achievement to be indexed in — it means that one's journal has "made it." While you can use literature search AI tools as part of your research process, they do not offer you insights into what was ingested, how, and why; using these databases remains an important part of the research process.

Scientific Literature

BIOSIS Previews
International coverage of important life sciences and biomedical science journals from 1926 to the present, with a vetting process to evaluate and select journals based on their importance to the field. Allows for detailed and granular searches, including chemical and biochemical names; taxonomic data; taxonomic notes; author; and more. A list of journals indexed for BIOSIS Previews and other Clarivate products is available here.
Bioline
A not-for-profit scholarly publishing cooperative committed to providing open access to quality research journals published in developing countries. BI's goal of reducing the South to North knowledge gap is crucial to a global understanding of health (tropical medicine, infectious diseases, epidemiology, emerging new diseases), biodiversity, the environment, conservation and international development.
geneXplain (BIOBASE Knowledge Library)
This platform provides tools for bioinformatic, cheminformatic, and systems biological tools. There is a BIOBASE help page that can assist you with getting started.
Semantic MEDLINE
Finds MEDLINE citations in PubMed and uses natural language processing to extract semantic predications from titles and abstracts. The predications are used to create a drawing showing relationships between terms or concepts. A free user account must be created.
Zoological Record
This is the world's oldest continuing abstract database of animal biology and is considered the world's leading taxonomic reference, with coverage back to 1864.

Data

iDigBio
Biological specimen database with coverage of both living and extinct specimens. Includes lesson plans for using digitized specimens with students. Biologists are welcome to join the community.
MorphoBank
A grant-funded database of peer reviewed morphological matrices. The goal is to build a tree of life using this information.
PhyloPic
Bank of silhouettes of animals and plants. The silhouette images are free to use and available for reuse under Creative Commons licenses.

Biology and General Life Sciences Resources at Yale: Journals and Databases

Locating Journals

Databases

Scientific Literature

Data

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