LibGuides: BME Capstone 370 & 371: Searching for BME Research Papers

We Recommend Using Library Databases

Here is a list of databases to help with finding information about biomedical engineering research. Coverage varies by product but most help you find research papers --- including journal articles and conference papers --- on topics of interest. See more products at the big list of Databases, where you may search by subject, type, and provider.

Which to select?

Academic Search Complete indexes articles from engineering journals and very few conference papers or preprints. The interdisciplinary coverage is good for engineering subjects.
Compendex is the special index --- across engineering disciplines --- of the journal and conference literature of engineering.
Inspec has a reputation for having good coverage of European publications. It is the special index for the literature of physics and for electrical and computer engineering. It is good for biomedical research.
The PubMed/Medline family of indexes covers the literature of medicine. PubMed is difficult to use but is freely available. It has some additional content compared with the Medline family of databases (Medline products will always have a better interface).
ABI/Inform is our business librarian's recommendation over Business Source Complete (also a good choice). Engineering topics are business topics.
It depends. You may be working on a user interface for a medical device. There are special indexing products for the psychological literature, and for other subjects, too.
Google Scholar is easy to find but we have better and more sophisticated databases through the Libraries; the cited-by feature is good. If you use the product, use it through the Libraries link or adjust the settings to take advantage of UT subscriptions.

Academic Search Complete
Good engineering coverage and good coverage of most topics of interest for college work. Focuses on journal and magazine articles. Lots of full text.
Compendex
The most comprehensive index of the research literature of engineering -- we expect it to cover all engineering disciplines. Includes indexing of journal articles, conference papers, and pre-prints. May be searched together with Inspec.
INSPEC
The special index for the research literature of physics, electrical & computer engineering, and control. May be searched together with Compendex.
Web of Science
Our strongest index for the research literature of biology. It is multidisciplinary and includes engineering coverage. The special feature is "Cited References." Includes valuable author profiles.
ABI/INFORM Global
Recommended by the UT business librarian as the preferred index to the literature of business and business research. Also includes coverage of popular materials.
Business Source Complete
Another good index to the business literature. This one has the Ebsco interface.
Embase
Index to the research literature of medicine, with a European base. Complementary to Medline/PubMed. Be sure to notice that the search interface is special to this product.

Members of the PubMed/Medline family of databases. PubMed indexing includes some additional items. The Medline databases (we have several versions) have more familiar interfaces. No matter the name, the products index the research literature of medicine.

PubMed
Unlimited users.
Updated weekly. Provides access to over 36 million citations in MEDLINE, PreMEDLINE, and other related databases. Links to the full text articles are provided when available, subject to UT subscription status.

Set up LibKey Nomad to find access through the UT Libraries subscriptions and purchases.
MEDLINE (EBSCO)
Unlimited users.
Updated monthly. Provides bibliographic indexing from the National Library of Medicine (NLM) covering the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, and the preclinical sciences. Contains bibliographic citations (e.g., authors, title, and journal reference) and author abstracts from 4,500 biomedical journals published in the United States and 70 foreign countries.
Journal articles are indexed for MEDLINE using NLM's controlled vocabulary, MeSH (Medical Subject Headings). Citations are created by the National Library of Medicine, International MEDLARS partners, and cooperating professional organizations.
MEDLINE has worldwide coverage, but 88% of the citations in current MEDLINE are to English-language sources and 76% have English abstracts.

NLM provides free access to MEDLINE through PubMed.

Google Scholar with UT Library access set:

Google Scholar
Unlimited users.
Google Scholar uses the popular Google search engine to enable searches for scholarly materials such as peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from broad areas of research. It includes a variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web. Google Scholar includes full text and citations.

Use this link to access Google Scholar, and see our Google Scholar Guide for information on using this resource.

"Find it at UT"

Click on "Find it at UT" (or on an icon with similar text) to link to the electronic text of a journal article. Sometimes, the linking won't get you to the text. If that happens, you should see a link to where you can request a copy.

Get a Scan

To request a copy of a paper you don't find, go to the Get a Scan form.