LibGuides: IPRO: Key Resources

Find Articles and Databases

These resources are a good place to start your research, since they contain a broad range of sources from various kinds of disciplines.

Illinois Tech Library Search
Use Illinois Tech's Library Search to search through many of Galvin Library's online and electronic resources at once. Find books, articles, journals, and more.
This resource is best if you want to ensure you'll be able to access a resource right away, and you want to do a comprehensive search of all of our holdings.

Academic Search Complete
Contains more than 8,500 full-text periodicals, the majority being peer-reviewed journals. It also provides an index to additional journals, books, reports, and conference proceedings. It covers a wide range of topics and is a good place to start researching a topic.

Google Scholar is a popular way to search for scholarly articles, reports, books and more. Google Scholar is best if you want to search for articles beyond just what is in the library catalog, or if you feel most confident using Google search.

Make sure to connect your Google Scholar to IIT's libraries from the Library links section of Scholar Settings. This way, when you find an article you'd like to read you will be able to see if we have the article or be directed to MyILL to request it if we don't. More detailed instructions on how to do this are in the tab Optimize Search.

Subject-specific databases can be useful when you're looking for discipline-specific information or a specific type of source - for example, standards or market research. Databases are also a good place to find scholarly and peer-reviewed articles.

Below is a list of databases that IPRO teams often find useful. Check out the full A-Z Databases list to see a full list of databases and filter by subject or type in order to narrow based on your research needs, or look for a research guide for your subject to see what databases the library recommends.

ACM Digital Library - Association for Computing Machinery
This database contains research papers, articles, news, journals and all other publications ever published by ACM. Content within the database primarily relates to computer science within different academic fields. The database can be browsed by topic or literature type. The advanced search function allows for specific queries by keyword, institutional affiliation, conference, among other useful features.
IEEE Xplore - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
IEEE Xplore contains the full text of publications from the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, and the Institution of Electrical Engineers. Sources include full text journal articles, conference reports, conference proceedings, standards, and society papers.
ProQuest SciTech Collection
This huge database is "the ultimate science and technology research solution, combining full text journals with detailed indexing of global literature on natural sciences, engineering and technology. Areas covered include materials science, aerospace engineering, civil engineering, biology, aquatic sciences, environmental science, computer science and earth sciences in addition to many more."

The SciTech Premium Collection includes the Natural Science Collection and the Technology Collection and provides full-text titles from around the world, including scholarly journals, trade and industry journals, magazines, technical reports, conference proceedings, government publications, and more.

For those researchers who need to conduct comprehensive literature reviews, this database includes specialized, editorial-controlled A&I resources for discovery of relevant scholarly research and technical literature critical to the discipline.
Mergent Intellect This link opens in a new window
Mergent Intellect provides basic company facts on over 20 million North American companies and over 70 million global companies. Use this to find market reports and company information.
Web of Science
One of the world's leading literature sources in the STEM fields: Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics. In addition to peer-reviewed research articles, WoS also includes review articles, and proceedings from conferences, symposia, seminars, colloquia, workshops, etc.

Many IPRO teams need to do patent research at various points of the design process. Get started with Google Patent search, and then check out our guide on Patents to learn about additional places to look for prior art.

Google's Patent search can be a useful starting place to find patents. Pulling from U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) data, Google Patent Search provides full-text searching of US patents back to 1780 and allows for forward and backward reference searching.

Patents
This guide includes additional patent search databases beyond Google Patent Search, as well as recommendations to improve search results.

Subject specific research guides can help you find additional resources that deal with a specific topic or type of research. These guides are typically created by librarians who specialize in that subject area.

Galvin Library Research Guides
Research guides can provide key resources and information relevant to a specific subject, topic, or course. The full list of Galvin Library research guides defaults to guides separated by subject, but you can also view the guides sorted by type or see the entire list.
Find Company & Industry Information
From the Business & Economics Subject guide, this page is useful if you need to do market research related to an industry or find company-specific details.
Datasets
This page contains links to government and Illinois Tech resources, as well as information on how to cite datasets.
Government Documents
Guide to government resources available to the public and via the Galvin Library, including: military journals, maps, technical reports, laws and regulations.