Welcome to the UCL Library Services earth sciences subject guide. These pages are maintained by Ruth Russell, subject librarian for earth sciences. The content is regularly revised and feedback or suggestions are welcomed.
This guide provides links to and information about resources relating to earth sciences. Both printed and electronic collections are covered:
WISE for Mathematics and Physical Sciences
WISE is a comprehensive, step-by-step online guide to finding and using information effectively. It includes detailed information on how to use all the resources listed below. Go to http://www.ucl.ac.uk/moodle, and log in with your UCL userid and password. Click on WISE and select Mathematical and Physical Sciences to start the course (if WISE does not appear in your list of courses click on “All courses” in the top left menu then select WISE and register yourself on the course.) Help with WISE.
Training
Training sessions on electronic library resources are held in the DMS
Watson Teaching Cluster. For dates and times see Information
Skills Training. Individual and group training sessions on specific databases
and other electronic resources can be arranged
on request: to book a session, please contact
the Library Science Team on lib-sciteam@ucl.ac.uk or
see the contact details below.
Online demonstrations
For an online demonstration on how to use the Library catalogue to search for material click here.
Library news for Science and Engineering
Visit Library news for Science and Engineering the library blog for the UCL faculty of Engineering and UCL Faculty of Mathematical and Physical Sciences to keep up to date with new resources (both printed and electronic), Open Access, interesting events, useful websites and general library news.
Recent blog posts
The Earth Sciences collection is
on the 3rd floor of the Science Library, in the DMS Watson
Building. Earth Sciences books are shelved as the GEOLOGY book collection;
journals are shelved as the GEOSCIENCE PERIODICALS collection. There may be
relevant
material elsewhere in the Science Library.
Book collections
The Library has its own classification scheme for arranging books on the shelves.
A typical classmark for a book will consist of the name of the subject (indicating
a section of the Library) followed by letters and numbers indicating its classified
position on the shelves within that section. For instance:
GEOLOGY B 40 GIL for Chemical fundamentals of geology by Robin Gill
(where
Geology is the collection, B 40 the classified position within the collection
and GIL the first three letters of the author's surname).
The GEOLOGY collection is divided into several sections. Some important ones are as follows:
GEOLOGY A - introductions to geology
GEOLOGY B - dynamic and structural geology, including geophysics and geochemistry
GEOLOGY C - geomorphology, including oceanography
GEOLOGY D - mineralogy
GEOLOGY E - petrology
GEOLOGY F - economic geology
GEOLOGY G - historical geology and stratigraphy
GEOLOGY H - palaeontology
GEOLOGY I - planetary geology
Some of the other sections of the Library you might need are:
PHYSICS (Science Library, 3rd floor)
CHEMISTRY (Science Library, 3rd floor)
ENGINEERING (Science Library, 4th floor)
Finally, remember to use eUCLid,
the Library catalogue, to find out exactly where each book is held. Demonstration of searching eUCLid.
Journal collections
Journals are kept separately from books. Earth sciences journals that we keep on site are in the GEOSCIENCES Pers section on the third floor
of the Science Library. The PHYSICAL SCIENCES Pers section,
also on the third floor of the Science Library, covers chemistry and physics,
and may include some relevant material.
Older journals and those which are available electronically are held in the library Store. Journal volumes held in the library store can be requested via the Store Request Form.
Science journals are not available for
loan, but may be photocopied in
the Library. For information about photocopying, see http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Library/Photocopy.shtml
For further information and a printable guide to finding
journals see the Library leaflet Finding journals. For
information about electronic journals, see below.
There is a useful guide to journal title abbreviations at http://library.caltech.edu/reference/abbreviations/.
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Material in electronic form is available to registered members of UCL. To access these resources, users are advised to navigate to material using the links from the Library Services website. If you are off-site, you will be prompted for your UCL userid and password. For more information about this visit the
Information for electronic Library resource users section of the Library Services website.
Indexes and abstracts
The Library subscribes to a number of bibliographic databases, of which the
following might be particularly useful:
- GeoRef is
the American Geological Institute's database. GeoRef contains over 2 million
records and covers geological literature from North America from 1785 and the
rest of the world from 1933.
- GEOBASE covers
human and physical geography, ecology, geology, oceanography and geomechanics
back to 1980.
- Earthquake Engineering Abstracts indexes and abstracts of all major journals that publish significant earthquake engineering research.
- Web of Science (Science
Citation Index) indexes over 6000 science
journals from 1981 onwards. For further information you can follow a number of online tutorials in various languages on the Web of Knowledge website by clicking here. You will need a browser running Flash Version 8 or higher to view these tutorials.
- SCOPUS multi-disciplinary database containing references to journal articles, conference proceedings, trade publications, book series and web resources. For further information see the online tutorials at SCOPUS.
Other databases, which may be of use are:
For a complete list of databases available at UCL go to http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Library/database/.
MetaLib can display a full list of indexing & abstracting services. For further information see our online guide.
Electronic journals
A range of journal titles is available electronically to registered members
of UCL.
- To look for a specific title, go to the alphabetical list on
the Library's web pages at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Library/ejournal.
You will also find details of the access arrangements for each title.
- Earth Sciences titles can be browsed alphabetically by following the link to the e-journals page and clicking on the “Subject” heading. From there, select your subject from the category list.
For further information you can consult the Library leaflet
on Finding journals.
Exam papers
For information about exam papers, and access to all undergraduate and postgraduate papers for the last 5 years up to 2010, go to http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Library/exam.shtml. Online papers for Earth Sciences are available via this link.
Paper copies of exam papers for the current year for all Main and Science Library subjects are shelved in the Photocopying Room of the Main Library. Older papers are available in printed format and are kept in Stores. These can be requested by clicking here.
Other Internet resources
For other relevant web-based material for Earth Sciences, see the links on the
Earth Sciences webpages, as well as:
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The Natural History Museum Library has excellent collections in relevant subject areas and is open by
appointment to bona fide researchers.
The Senate House Library in
Malet Street has some relevant collections. Any registered member of UCL can
join the Library and borrow from there.
The British Library is
a useful resource and all UCL staff and students can apply directly for reference
access. You will need to bring indentification showing proof of address (e.g.
utility bill), proof of signature (e.g. driving
licence) and proof of student or research status (UCL ID card) in order to
obtain a reader's pass.
More information about using other libraries, and links
to other library catalogues, are available at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/otherlib.shtml.
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For further assistance in using the Library, visit the Science Enquiry Desk,
which is on the ground floor of the Science Library. During term-time it is staffed
from 09:30-18:00 Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and 09:30-17:30 Tuesdays and Thursdays (shorter hours during vacations). You may
also telephone the Enquiry Desk on extension 37789 or 020 7679 7789 (for external
callers).
The Subject Librarian for Earth Sciences is Ruth Russell, who is based in room 314 of the Science Library.
For further guidance and information, or to arrange an individual training session,
contact Ruth on extension 32634 or 020 7679 2634, or e-mail lib-sciteam@ucl.ac.uk.
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