Guides: Biology: Biology

Sofia Discovery tool | SEARCH McGILL RESOURCES (excluding journal articles)

Finding books

Browse the shelves using the following call numbers:

Biology (General): QH301 - QH705
Evolution: QH359 - QH425
Genetics: QH426 - QH470
Reproduction and Life: QH471 - QH531
Ecology: QH540 - QH549
Cell Biology: QH573 - QH671

Course reserves

You can search for materials on course reserve using the course code or name of the instructor.

Open Textbooks

OpenStax science open textbooks, including general biology
Search OASIS for open textbooks
Find out more about finding and using open textbooks

eBooks

Schulich Library maintains a list of e-book packages

Find out about accessing the Library's online resources from on and off campus and requesting items not in the Library collection through Interlibrary Loan.

Finding articles

Article databases

AGRICOLA
- This link opens in a new window
Resources from the United States Department of Agriculture. Includes agriculture, animal and veterinary sciences, entomology, plant sciences, forestry, aquaculture and fisheries.
ASFA (ProQuest Aquatic Science Collection)
- This link opens in a new window
A suite of databases related to aquatic science; includes Aquatic Science and Fisheries Abstracts, Aqualine, Oceanic Abstracts, and Water Resources Abstracts.
BioOne
- This link opens in a new window
Provides access to research journals in biology, ecology and environmental science. Most titles are published by small societies and non-commercial publishers.
bioRxiv: The Preprint Server for Biology
Free online archive of unpublished preprints in the life sciences.
BIOSIS Citation Index (Web of Science)
- This link opens in a new window
Life sciences and biomedical research covering pre-clinical and experimental research, methods and instrumentation, animal studies, and more. Access content from journals, meetings, patents, and books. Backfiles available to 1926.
CAB Abstracts
- This link opens in a new window
Covers research and literature in the fields of agriculture, forestry, human health, nutrition, animal health, and resource management and conservation.
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
A community-curated online directory that provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals in all fields.
PubMed (McGill)
Free access to bibliographic information from MEDLINE, OLDMEDLINE, other non-indexed citations, and NCBI Books.
SciELO Citation Index (Web of Science)
- This link opens in a new window
Access to scholarly literature in sciences, social sciences, arts and humanities published in open access journals from Latin American, Portugal, Spain and South Africa.

(1997-present)
Scopus
- This link opens in a new window
Multidisciplinary. Provides citation counts, h-index, and patent searching.
Web of Science Core Collection (All Indexes)
- This link opens in a new window
Multidisciplinary database of journal articles and conference proceedings, used for citation analysis of research
Zoological Record (Web of Science)
- This link opens in a new window
Taxonomic reference and oldest continuing database of animal biology, paleobiology, and zoology.
(1864-present)
10 simultaneous users.
License information can be found here: License Terms of Use

Theses and dissertations

eScholarship - McGill theses

McGill's open access institutional repository. Includes theses and dissertations, articles, conference proceedings, books and more.

ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Full Text

International in scope, contains millions of works from thousands of universities. Full-text coverage spans from 1743 to the present, with citation coverage dating back to 1637.

OAIster

A database of open access resources that allows you to search multiple archives at once. Set the Content option to Theses/Dissertations to limit the search.

OpenDOAR

A global directory of academic open access repositories.

Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD)

An international organization dedicated to promoting the adoption, creation, use, dissemination, and preservation of electronic theses and dissertations

Theses Canada

A collaborative program between Library and Archives Canada (LAC) and nearly 70 Canadian universities.

Check out the Theses & Dissertations guide for more information, including finding theses by geographical region.

Methods and techniques

These resources contain specific lab methods and techniques, often including information about the equipment and ingredients needed.

Bio-protocol

Bio-protocol publishes high quality step-by-step peer-reviewed protocols in any area of life sciences. To limit redundancy, Bio-protocol does not publish protocols detailed in other protocol journals.

BioTechniques

A peer-reviewed, open-access journal dedicated to publishing original laboratory methods, related technical tools, and methods-oriented review articles that are of broad interest to professional life scientists.

Cold Spring Harbor Protocols

An interdisciplinary journal providing a definitive source of research methods in cell, developmental and molecular biology, genetics, bioinformatics, protein science, computational biology, immunology, neuroscience and imaging.

Nature Methods

Publishes novel methods and significant improvements to basic life sciences research techniques.

Nature Protocols

Publishes the protocols being used to answer outstanding biological and biomedical science research questions, including methods grounded in physics and chemistry that have a practical application to the study of biological problems.

Nuleic Acids Research Methods Online

Publishes the results of leading-edge research into physical, chemical, biochemical and biological aspects of nucleic acids and proteins involved in nucleic acid metabolism and/or interactions.

OpenWetWare

OpenWetWare is an effort to promote the sharing of information, know-how, and wisdom among researchers and groups who are working in biology & biological engineering

Model organisms

*Arabidopsis thaliana*	The Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR) - Genetic and molecular data
*Caenorhabditis elegans*	WormBase - information concerning the genetics, genomics and biology of C. elegans and related nematodes
*Danio rerio*	Zebra Fish Information Network (ZFIN) - on-line database of information for zebrafish researchers
*Drosophila*	FlyBase - A database of Drosophila genes & genomes FlyExpress - currently contains 100,000+ images of expression from nearly 5,000 genes and >30,000 images extracted and curated from peer-reviewed publications
*Glycine max*	SoyBase - USDA soybean genetics database, includes molecular data regarding soybean genes and sequences
Legume species	Legume Information System (LIS) - a collaborative, community resource to facilitate crop improvement by integrating genetic, genomic, and trait data across legume species
*Mus musculus*	Mouse Genome Database - National Institute of Genetics (Japan) database, includes a chromosome MapViewer Mouse Genome Informatics - (MGI) international database resource for the laboratory mouse, providing integrated genetic, genomic, and biological data Mouse Phenome Database - (MPD) enables the integration of genomic and phenomic data by providing access to primary experimental data, well-documented data collection protocols and analysis tools
*Xenopus*	Xenbase - gives access the diverse and rich genomic, expression and functional data available from Xenopus research
*Zea mays*	Maize Genetics and Genomics Database (MaixeGDB) - community-oriented, long-term, federally funded informatics service to researchers focused on the crop plant and model organism Zea mays

Taxomony

Integrated Taxonomic Information System - Taxonomic information on plants, animals, fungi, and microbes of North America and the world.
International Code of Zoological Nomenclature - Set of rules for naming and registering names of organisms,
The International Plant Names Index - A database of the names and associated basic bibliographical details of seed plants, ferns and lycophytes.
Index to Organism Names - Contains millions of animal names, both fossil and recent, at all taxonomic ranks, reported from the scientific literature.
NCBI Taxonomy - The Taxonomy Database is a curated classification and nomenclature for all of the organisms in the public sequence databases. This currently represents about 10% of the described species of life on the planet.
The Plant List - A working list of all known vaslcular plant species. Includes Bryophytes, but does not include algae or fungi
Smithsonian's Mammal Species of the World - Names are organized in a hierarchy that includes Order, Suborder, Family, Subfamily, Genus, Species and Subspecies.
Smithsonian's Index Nominum Genericorum - Plant genera around the world is listed here if it is included in the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature

Librarian

Andrea Miller-Nesbitt

she/her/elle

Email me

Contact:

Schulich Library of Physical Sciences, Life Sciences, and Engineering (Office located in the McLennan Library Building during the Schulich closure)

514-398-1663

Subjects: Anatomy and physiology, Bioinformatics, Biological sciences, Pharmacology and therapeutics

Biology

Land Acknowledgment

Library Accessibility Survey