Primary Sources

This guide will provide more information about finding primary sources appropriate for your discipline and area of research.

Science & Engineering

Primary sources in the Sciences are much different than in the humanities or arts. In the Sciences, primary sources are the original materials or information that report research, data, ideas, or discoveries for the first time. Primary sources can also be referred to as primary literature, primary articles, or research studies. The main way to determine if something is a primary source is if it is factual, and not interpretive. Particularly important for the sciences is that the material explains the research methodology - for example, if it has a "Materials and Methods" section.

Examples of scientific primary sources can be:

Technical reports
Conference papers or proceedings
Dissertations
Interviews
Laboratory notebooks
Patents
A study or survey in a journal article

For more research assistance, see the Science guides.

BIOSIS Previews This link opens in a new window
This is an expansive index to life sciences and biomedical research from journals, meetings, books, and patents. The database covers pre-clinical and experimental research, methods and instrumentation, animal studies, and more. Includes BIOSIS indexing and enhanced MeSH disease terms.. BIOSIS also combines the content from Biological Abstracts and Biological Abstracts/RRM.
CRL library catalog This link opens in a new window
The approximately five million newspapers, journals, books, pamphlets, dissertations, archives, government publications, and other resources held by the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) support original research and teaching. While these shared collections are largely paper and microform, CRL provides online access to a continually expanding body of digital materials. The "Topic Guides" section of the website is an excellent place to start as it has a number of topic guides organized by discipline or region.
- Access digitized content directly through CRL online catalog request other material through UofC Interlibrary Loans
Membership in Center for Research Libraries provides access to a wide range of uncommon materials, with a focus on news, law and government, finance, the history of science, technology and engineering, and the history and economics of agriculture. The approximately five million newspapers, journals, books, pamphlets, dissertations, archives, government publications, and other resources held by CRL support original research and teaching. CRL holdings include materials from all world regions: Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, Central, South and Southeast Asia, North America, and Europe. While these shared collections are largely paper and microform, CRL provides online access to a continually expanding body of digital materials. CRL digital collections of primary source materials support research and teaching in the humanities, sciences, and social sciences.
Compendex This link opens in a new window
This database covers the core literature of engineering including related specialties and technologies.
Compendex is the most comprehensive bibliographic database of engineering research available today, containing over nine million references and abstracts taken from over 5,000 engineering journals, conferences and technical reports. The broad subject areas of engineering and applied science are comprehensively represented. Online coverage is from 1969 to the present. Approximately 500,000 new records are added to the database annually from over 175 disciplines and major specialties within engineering. The Engineering Index Backfile is also available covering the information from the printed Engineering Index from 1884-1969. This adds about 1.7 million additional records to the database.
GeoRef This link opens in a new window
This database contains over 3.9 million references to geoscience journal articles, books, maps, conference papers, reports and theses.
GeoRef database covers the geology of North America from 1669 to the present and the geology of the rest of the world from 1933 to the present. The database includes references to all publications of the U.S. Geological Survey. Masters' theses and doctoral dissertations from U.S. and Canadian universities are also covered. Includes access to the GeoRef In Process database (so both databases can be searched at once) and GeoRef Preview database (on the AGI web site).
- Coverage is from 1785 (North America) and 1933 (other areas) to the present.
IEEE Xplore Digital Library This link opens in a new window
Web access to more than 4,000,000 full-documents in subjects such as aerospace, bioengineering, engineerings, geoscience, and robotics.
IEEE Xplore provides web access to more than four-million full-text documents from some of the world's most highly cited publications in electrical engineering, computer science and electronics. More than two-million documents are in robust, dynamic HTML format.
Knovel This link opens in a new window
A collection of resources in engineering disciplines such as aerospace, chemical engineering, civil engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, nanotechnology, and oil and gas engineering.
A collection of e-books and data tools in several Engineering disciplines. Knovel also contains many data tools, including a property search, interactive engineering equations, and the ability to export property data to Excel.
PubMed This link opens in a new window
PubMed comprises more than 28 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books.
Database from US National Library of Medicine covering medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, molecular biology, the health care system, and the preclinical sciences.
- Coverage is from 1966 to the present.
- LinkOut links to some UofC e-journal subscriptions.
SIMBAD Astronomical Database (Set of Identifications, Measurements and Bibliography for Astronomical Data) This link opens in a new window
The SIMBAD astronomical database provides basic data, cross-identifications, bibliography and measurements for astronomical objects outside the solar system.
Contains information on 2.75 million stars and objects, mostly outside the solar system, including coordinates, spectral type, dimensions, observational data, and bibliographical references.
Web of science This link opens in a new window
Access the world's leading scholarly literature in the sciences.
Web of Science indexes core journal articles, conference proceedings, data sets, and other resources in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. Includes:
- BIOSIS Previews (1980-present)
- KCI-Korean Journal Database (1980-present)
- MEDLINE® (1950-present)
- Preprint Citation Index (1991-present)
- SciELO Citation Index (2002-present)

Last Updated: Apr 10, 2024 10:10 AM
URL: https://libguides.ucalgary.ca/guides/primarysources
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Subjects: History, History-Primary Sources, Library & Information Science, Reference Tools, Research, Writing

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