Oxford LibGuides: Research Guide for Physics: Home

Finding books for Physics

Oxford has a wide range of ebooks for Physics and printed books, including the main science collection in the Radcliffe Science Library. For more detailed info about our book collections visit our books page of this guide.

SOLO
Search SOLO, the University's resource discovery tool, for print and ebooks at Oxford. You can search by author, title or subject and limit to a specific library or online resources.
SOLO user guide
If you need help with SOLO, take a look at this guide for tips on searching, managing results and using your SOLO account.

Key journals

A lot of journals, as well as being available in print, are available online and can be searched via SOLO or eJournals A-Z. Below are a few of the top journals for Physics below but you can find a longer list on the journals page of this guide.

Nature physics
Nature reviews physics
Philosophical transactions. Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences
Published by the Royal Society of London.
Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences
Published by the Royal Society of London.
Reports on progress in physics
From the Institute of Physics (Great Britain)
Reviews of modern physics
Published by American Physical Society through the American Institute of Physics
Physics (BrowZine)
Physics journal content from the Bodleian Libraries from 2005 onwards.
SOLO
Search SOLO, the University's resource discovery tool, for print and ebooks at Oxford. You can search by author, title or subject and limit to a specific library or online resources.

Key databases

Oxford subscribes to many bibliographic databases. They can be used to locate journal articles, conference proceedings, books, patents, images, data and more. You can find some of the key databases for Physics below, but take a look at the databases page of this guide for more titles.

Scopus
Scopus is a bibliographic database for science, medicine and some social sciences. It covers over 25,000 journals and over 300,000 books from over 7,000 publishers worldwide, providing access to over 90 million records going back as far as the 18th century.
Web of Science
Alternative names: WoK ; WoS ; Web of Knowledge. Provides access to and cross-searching of databases in the science, technology, engineering, mathematics, medicine, social sciences and humanities. It includes Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index, Arts and Humanities Citation Index, Data Citation Index. Also provides access to Journal Citation Reports for sciences and social sciences.

MathSciNet
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MathSciNet is a comprehensive database covering the world's mathematical literature since 1864. It provides Web access to the bibliographic data and reviews of mathematical research literature contained in the Mathematical Reviews Database.

The Mathematical Reviews Database is the database of bibliographic information and reviews created and maintained by the American Mathematical Society. It continues the tradition and extends the scope of the work begun by the paper publication Mathematical Reviews in 1940. Journals, conference proceedings, and books of mathematics research are covered. The Mathematical Reviews Database is published in a variety of formats, including MathSciNet, the monthly Mathematical Reviews, and Current Mathematical Publications.

Mathematical Reviews is a paper publication containing the bibliographic information and review information of those items in the Mathematical Reviews Database for which there are reviews.

Current Mathematical Publications is published 17 times per year and contains the bibliographic information and classifications (using the Mathematics Subject Classification) of the classified items in the Mathematical Reviews Database.

MathSciNet, the Mathematical Reviews Database, Mathematical Reviews, and Current Mathematical Publications are all produced by the American Mathematical Society.

SPIE Digital Library
SPIE (the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers) aims to advance light-based technologies. The SPIE Digital Library is the most extensive resource available on optics and photonics, and includes all papers published since 1962 in SPIE's peer-reviewed journals, more than 350 ebooks with 25 new titles added annually, and 10,500+ volumes of SPIE conference proceedings

SpringerMaterials 1961-
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SpringerMaterials is the most comprehensive platform on materials data, providing information on more than 290,000 materials, over 3,000 properties, and their applications. It offers access to major materials science data sources including the Landolt-Börnstein book series, and other specialized materials science databases.

SciFinder
This resource requires you to register before use.
Alternative name: Sci Finder Scholar

SciFinder on the Web is a research discovery tool that allows you to explore the world’s literature in Chemistry and related scientific disciplines including biochemistry, biomedical sciences, chemical engineering, materials science, pharmacology, agriculture, etc. The CAS information service indexes and abstracts information from more than 10000 major scientific journals, 57 patent authorities around the world, conference proceedings, technical reports, etc and produces the following databases:
CAplus (Scientific Literature and Patents)
CAS REGISTRY (Chemical Substances)
CASREACT (Reactions)
CHEMCATS (Chemical Catalogs)
CHEMLIST (Regulated Chemicals)
MARPAT (Markush Structures)
SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System, The
Alternative names: ADS ; Astronomy Data System (SAO/NASA)

The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) is a Digital Library portal for researchers in Astronomy and Physics, operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) under a NASA grant. The ADS maintains three bibliographic databases containing more than 7.1 million records: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Physics, and arXiv e-prints. The main body of data in the ADS consists of bibliographic records, which are searchable through highly customizable query forms, and full-text scans of much of the astronomical literature which can be browsed or searched via our full-text search interface. Integrated in its databases, the ADS provides access and pointers to a wealth of external resources, including electronic articles, data catalogs and archives. We currently have links to over 7.8 million records maintained by our collaborators.

NASA STI Repository (NTRS)
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A world-class collection of scientific and technical information (STI) created or funded by NASA. It includes over 4.3 million metadata records and over 500K full-text documents.

Dimensions
Alternative names: Dimensions (Digital Science)

Dimensions is a bibliographic database which can be used to analyse citation and publication metrics to help you measure influence and impact at article, author and category level. It contains over 100 million publication records, predominantly in science and medicine.

This links to the freely available version, for publication search, citation and Altmetric data, and other research analytics. The University does not currently subscribe to Dimensions Plus (for full access including grants, patents, clinical trials and policy documents).
INSPIRE
Alternative names: INSPIRE HEP ; High-Energy Physics (HEP) Literature Database ; SPIRES HEP Database

INSPIRE, formerly known as SPIRES, was established by the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in the late 1960s as a database of particle physics literature. SLAC also collaborates with other physics institutions around the world on the database.

Databases A-Z
A full, browsable list of Oxford's online databases.
SOLO
Search SOLO, the University's resource discovery tool, for print and ebooks at Oxford. You can search by author, title or subject and limit to a specific library or online resources.

Lead Librarian, Physical and Applied Sciences

Alessandra Vetrugno

Email Me

Contact:

Radcliffe Science Library

+44 (0)1865 272817

Key libraries

Radcliffe Science Library
The Radcliffe Science Library (RSL) is Oxford University's main teaching and research science library.

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Research Guide for Physics: Home

Purpose of this guide