Physics Subject Page

Most main lending books (3 week and 1 week) for your subject are located on the second floor. Search the Library Catalogue to find out what books we have or browse the shelves at the relevant number. Here are some of the main shelfmark numbers for physics and related topics.

Subject	Book Shelf Mark
Astronomy	520
Electricity & Electronics	537
Heat	536
Lasers	621.366
Mechanics	532
Molecular Physics	539.6
Nuclear Physics	539.7
Optics	535
Physics (General)	530
Quantum Physics	539
Solid State Physics	530.41
Sound	534

E-books

The library currently provides access to thousands of  e-books. When you search the library catalogue you can refine your search by choosing "E-Books" on the left hand side of the screen. When you click on the link to view the book you may be asked to verify yourself as a registered student by logging in with your computer username and password (Novel login).

Apart from individual titles accessible via the catalogue, we also have searchable collections of e-books. Have a look at our e-books page for a full listing.

All our e-books can accessed off-campus.

Can’t find the book you are looking for?

Ask for help at the information desk. If we don’t have books listed on your recommended reading list you can contact your Subject Librarian or fill out the book suggestion form.

Reference Books

Reference books such as encyclopedias and dictionaries can be a great place to start your research. Reference books are located on the ground floor beside the information desk and may not be borrowed. We also have a number of general reference books available electronically .

Some recommended reference books

Gale encyclopedia of science

McGraw-Hill encyclopedia of science & technology

Encyclopedia of astronomy and astrophysics

Encyclopedia of applied physics

Handbook of laser technology and applications

Macmillan encyclopedia of physics

Journals

The A-Z of journals is a listing of all our print and e-journals. It will tell you if the journal you are looking for is available in print here in the library and/or electronically on one of our databases. You can search this list by entering the title of the journal or you can get a list of journals in your chosen subject area by browsing.

Remember – search by journal title NOT article title.

See what journals are available for the following subjects:

Astronomy & Astrophysics

Astronomical Observatories & Instruments

Astronomy - General

Astrophysics

Practical & Spherical Astronomy

Theoretical Astronomy

Physics

Acoustics & Sound

Atomic Physics

Cosmic Physics

Electricity & Magnetism 

Light & Optics

Nuclear Physics

Physics - General 

Thermodynamics

Weights & Measures

Sciences - General

To search for articles on your topic carry out a search on one of our databases

Databases

The following is a list of the most important databases for Physics and related subjects. A full list of all our databases is available from the A to Z of databases.

Some databases contain the full-text of the articles others provide you with a citation/abstract only. In the case of citation/abstract databases click on the this will search all our databases to see if the article you require is available

Key Physics Databases – start your searching here

Web of Science
Web of Science provides access to the Science Citation Index, a multidisciplinary index to the journal literature of the sciences. It fully indexes over 6,650 major journals across 150 scientific disciplines and includes the cited references from indexed articles.
Help: Database Guide (pdf)  | Search Tips (07:33 minutes)

INSPEC (EI Engineering Village)
This database indexes and summarises over 4,000 journals and 2,000 conference proceedings, books, reports relating to physics, electronics, electrical engineering, computer science, control, and information technology. Access to the database is through the Engineering Village interface. Database Guide (pdf) | Help

American Institute of Physics (AIP)  
Full text access to 12 AIP journals focusing  on interdisciplinary and applied topics in physics, astronomy and related fields of science and technology.

American Physical Society (APS)  
APS strives to 'advance and diffuse the knowledge of physics'. Provides full text access to the 7 APS journals with archival access to all APS titles as far back as 1893 through PROLA Physical Reviews Online Archive (see below)

Institute of Physics   
Access the full-text of the Institute of Physics journals. Choose search to carry out a keyword/author/title search of the entire collection or choose journal list to browse title list. Create a user account to set-up journal/search alerts. Includes access to archive from 1874.
Coverage: varies according to title
Database Guide (pdf)  |   Online tutorial

PROLA - Physical Review Online Archive
Backfile access to the American Physical Society (APS) journals. Access varies according to title and goes as far back as 1897 for Physical Review (Series 1). A complete list of titles is available to browse.
Help

Science Direct
Full-text access to over 1200 science, technology and medicine journals.  E-tutorials

Other databases

Academic Search Complete     
Full-text access to over 5,000 peer-reviewed journals in: business, communications, computer science, biology, chemistry, engineering, physics, psychology, education and nursing.

Annual Reviews  
Authoratitive, analytic reviews in 30 disciplines within the Biomedical, Physical, and Social Sciences. Annual Reviews saves you time by synthesising the vast amount of primary research literature and identifying the principal contributions in your field. Annual Reviews publications are among the highest cited publications by impact factor according to the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI).

InformaWorld  
Now Taylor & Francis Online

Oxford Journals 
Consists of 169 online journals from many disciplines including scientific, technical and medical.

SAGE journals online  
Full-text access to over 400 journals in Business, Humanities, Social Sciences, and Science, Technology and Medicine

SpringerLink
Full-text access to over 1,000 journals.

Taylor & Francis Online  
Previously Informaworld. Access to 1000+ peer reviewed journal titles published by Taylor and Francis, and a selection of journals published by Routledge and Psychology Press, covering arts & humanities, social sciences, sport, physics, mathematics, and chemistry.
Database tutorials

Wiley InterScience 
Full-text access to over 500 journals.

Wilson Omnifile  
A multi-disciplinary database which includes full-text access to a large number of general science and applied science & technology journals.

You can also search across a number of databases at once using Summon

Advanced Search | What is Summon?

Subject gateways and directories of weblinks

Academic Info- Physics Links and General Resources

Intute – Physical Sciences

BUBL LINK Catalogue of Internet Resources - Physics

More weblinks will be appearing shortly.

Try using a subject specific search engine e.g. Scirus

Would you like to suggest a weblink?   Email the Science Librarian