Need Help?
Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Library
This is a guide to selected sources of information for CVE 497/498 and graduate students. To locate books on civil and environmental engineering, go to the URI Libraries Advanced Search, select "subject" from the drop down box, and use terms like civil engineering or environmental engineering. Similar searches in Reference Databases such as Compendex (Engineering Village 2), Agriculture & Environmental Science, or TRIS Online will locate articles.
One type of resource that you should look for is a handbook; they contain practical information such as specifications, regulations and legal restrictions, tolerances, equations, and properties of materials and thus are extremely useful. You can find handbooks simply by adding "handbook" in another search box in the URI Libraries Search.
- URI Libraries Search
This link opens in a new window
Locate books, videos, online resources and more available through the URI Libraries.
Civil and Environmental Engineering Databases
These databases contain articles and resources that are usable for various aspects of civil and environmental engineering. While general databases such as Academic Search Complete can be useful for broad topics, the databases listed below are better tools for technical research into specific disciplines like civil or environmental engineering.
- Compendex (Engineering Village) This link opens in a new window
This link opens in a new window
- What's included? Citations to articles in professional magazines, scholarly journals, and conference proceedings in engineering. 1970-. Updated weekly.
- What else should I know? Links to articles open in a pop-up window, so you will need to deactivate the pop-up blocker on your browser to connect to full text.
- OSTI.GOV This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- What’s included? Indexes Department of Energy (DOE) sponsored scientific and technical reports. It provides access to all the information previously available in SciTech Connect, DOE Information Bridge, and Energy Citations Database. Replaces the print publication Energy Research Abstracts. Updated weekly.
- What dates are covered? 1995 - Present.
- Energy Citations Database This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- What’s included? Developed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI), this database indexes and provides abstracts for technical reports in energy-related disciplines. Includes links to full text when available.
- What dates are covered? 1948 - Present.
- IEEE Xplore (IEEE) This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- What’s included? Full-text access to IEEE journals, magazines, transactions, proceedings from approximately 125 of the most important IEEE conferences, and selected e-books. Also includes IEEE Spectrum Magazine and the IEEE Conference Proceedings Archive 1936-1999.
- Inspec (Engineering Village) This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- What’s included? Abstracts and indexing to the world’s scientific and technical literature. Provides coverage from over 3,400 journals, 2,000 conference proceedings as well as numerous books, dissertations and reports in the subject areas of physics, electrical engineering, electronics, communications, control engineering, computing, information technology, manufacturing, and production, mechanical engineering, and more.
- What dates are covered? 1969 - Present.
- What else should I know? This database is produced by the IET.
- National Centers for Environmental Information This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- What’s included? Comprehensive source of current and historic oceanic, atmospheric, and geophysical data.
- National Technical Information Service (NTIS) This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- What’s included? A title keyword index to over 750,000 NTIS reports, datafiles, CD-ROMs, and audiovisual materials.
- What dates are covered? 1990 - Present.
- ScienceDirect (Elsevier) This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- What’s included? A collection of journals from the publisher Elsevier and its affiliates. Journals may be browsed or searched by keyword. Access to the full content of articles from selected journals is available to URI users. Availability is indicated by a green icon. Other articles may be requested via Interlibrary Loan.
- What dates are covered? 1995 - Present.
- SciTech Premium Collection (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- What’s included? Citations to, abstracts, and full text of scholarly research and technical literature in disciplines related to natural sciences and technology. Content covered includes scholarly journals, trade and industry journals, magazines, technical reports, conference proceedings, government publications, and more.
- What dates are covered? 1946 - Present.
- What else should I know? Comprises the sub-databases: Advanced Technologies & Aerospace Database; Advanced Technologies & Aerospace Index; AGRICOLA; Agricultural Science Database; Aquatic Science & Fisheries Abstracts; Biological Science Database; Biological Science Index; Computer Science Database; Earth, Atmospheric & Aquatic Science Database; Engineering Database, Engineering Index; Environmental Science Database; Environmental Science Index; Materials Science Database; Materials Science Index; Meteorological & Geoastrophysical Abstracts; Oceanic Abstracts; Science Database.
- Scopus (Elsevier) This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- What’s included? Multidisciplinary abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature with tools to track, analyze, and visualize article and literature use. Includes journal articles, books, book series, conference papers, and more. Alternative to Web of Science. Indexes close to 35,000 titles.
- NUtranlit (formerly TRANweb Transportation Article File) This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- What’s included? NUtranlit, produced by the Northwestern University Transportation Library, is an index of transportation and law enforcement articles and conference proceedings.
- TRIS Online (Transportation Research Information Service) This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- What’s included? Offered by the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, this site provides citations and abstracts for transportation research covered in books, journal articles, technical reports. Other media, federal, state, local, and association publications and conference proceedings are also covered.
- What dates are covered? From the 1960s to the present, with some coverage before 1960.
- U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Databases This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- What’s included? Full text and image database of all patents granted by the Office back to 1790. Patents issued since 1976 may be searched by key word in the full text. Patents issued prior to 1976 may be searched by patent numbers or classification codes only.
- What dates are covered? 1790 - Present.
- Web of Science Core Collection (Clarivate) This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- What's included? Access to Science Citation Index (1900-present), Social Sciences Citation Index (1900-present), Arts & Humanities Citation Index (1975-present), Emerging Sources Citation Index (2005-present), Conference Proceedings Citation Index (1900-present), and Book Citation Index (2005-present). Contains citations to articles from over 10,000 of the most prestigious, high impact research journals in the world.
- What else should I know? Searching by cited reference allows the user to uncover the research that influenced an author’s work or to navigate forward in time to discover a paper’s impact on current research.
Created and Updated
Created by Alan Witt, 04/12.
Updated by Alexa Roy, 09/12