Physics and Astronomy Research Guide: Find Articles - Databases

A guide to physics and astronomy resources at Columbia University Libraries.

Find Scholarly Articles

To find scholarly articles or studies, you will need to use a database (not CLIO). Databases contain collections of articles, book chapters, conference proceedings, and may also contain newspaper/magazine articles.

These large, interdisciplinary databases are a great place to start:

  • Scopus - provides indexing, abstracting of, and citation linking to journals in biology, physics, chemistry, geosciences, agriculture, medicine, business, social work, and the social sciences.
  • Web of Science - indexes core journal articles, conference proceedings, data sets, and other resources in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities.

Physics Databases

  • arXiv.org - Open access preprints in physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics. Materials on this site are not peer-reviewed by arXiv.
  • AstroTools - Columbia University Astronomy and Astrophysics Tools Page.
  • SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) - 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 collections containing more than 15 million records covering publications in astronomy and astrophysics, physics, and general science, including all arXiv e-prints. The ADS also provides access and pointers to a wealth of external resources, including electronic articles available from publishers’ websites, astronomical object information, data catalogs and data sets hosted by external archives. 
  • ScienceDirect - Elsevier's database for scientific research that contains abstracts, tables of contents, and full text of articles in the sciences, technology, medicine and social sciences. 
  • Scite_ - an AI-powered research tool that helps researchers better discover and evaluate scientific literature through Smart Citations--a revolutionary system that shows whether articles support, contrast, or simply mention a given claim.
  • SpringerLink - Springer's database for journal titles as well as journals from other publishers. Subjects include: life sciences, chemical sciences, environmental sciences, geosciences, computer science, mathematics, medicine, physics & astronomy, engineering and economics.
  • SpringerMaterials: the Landolt-Börnstein database - based on the Landolt-Börnstein New Series, this collection includes data from all areas of physical sciences and engineering. SpringerMaterials also comprises the Dortmund Data Bank Software & Separation Technology, a Database on Thermophysical Properties and the Linus Pauling Files, a Database on Inorganic Solid Phases and chemical safety data.
  • Last Updated: Sep 9, 2025 1:49 PM
  • URL: https://guides.library.columbia.edu/physics-astronomy
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