LibGuides: Tricky Life Sciences Citations: Catalogs and Serials

Books

BIOSIS Serial Sources by BIOSIS
Call Number: 570.5 BIOA21B
Publication Date: 1995-2005
Has always been the go-to resource for biology journal titles and abbreviations, but it is no longer produced in print and the online version lacks abbreviations. Online version available.
Chemical Abstracts Service Source Index: 1907-2004 Cumulative
Call Number: 016.54 Ac2
Publication Date: 2005
This serial list for the Chemical Abstracts database has about 155,000 entries covering over 80,000 scientific journals and non-serial publications. CASSI, as it is universally known, is particularly useful since it covers a vast number of journals in all fields of science and technology back to 1907 and is thus valuable for its coverage of obscure foreign journals or journals that have ceased publication. CASSI is also available for free online and can be searched by journal title, abbreviation, and ISSN.
International Catalogue of Scientific Literature by Royal Society of London
Call Number: E-book
Publication Date: 1901-1914
Outgrowth of the Catalogue of Scientific Papers. Covers the years 1901-14. Author and subject catalogue. Divided into sections, for example, section M is devoted to botany, section L to general biology. Journal lists with abbreviated titles are provided.
Catalogue of Scientific Papers, 1800-1900 [print copy] by Royal Society of London
Call Number: 016.5 R81S
Publication Date: 1867-1902
An essential retrospective source. Entries are arranged by author's name. Abbreviations used are explained and are particularly helpful in locating titles of ceased periodicals. Also available as e-book.
Catalogue of Scientific Serials of all Countries Including the Transactions of Learned Societies in the Natural Physical and Mathematical Sciences, 1633-1876 [print copy] by Samuel Hubbard Scudder
Call Number: 016.5 SCU2C1965
Publication Date: 1965
A classic catalog listing over 4,000 serials from around the world. It is a valuable resource for tracking down the titles of rare, obscure society publications. The bulk of the book is in order by country and city, but there are also title and minor subject indexes. Also available as an e-book.
Union List of Serials in Libraries of the United States and Canada by Edna Brown Titus
Call Number: 016.05 UN331965
Publication Date: 1965
This classic union list is valuable for verifying the titles and dates of old serials. Also available as an e-book.
World List of Scientific Periodicals Published in the Years 1900-1960 by Peter Brown and George Burder Stratton
Call Number: 016.505 W8931963
Publication Date: 1963-1965
An alphabetical list of serials published in the early years of the Twentieth Century. It includes a list of standard abbreviations. Useful for verifying the titles of periodicals.
Zoological Record Serial Sources by BIOSIS
Call Number: 016.59105 Z76
Publication Date: 1988-2004
This journal list is similar to the BIOSIS Serial Sources, above, and is equally useful for verifying journals. It covers 4,500 current titles and 5,500 archival titles. The list of current titles is also available online.The online version does not include abbreviations.

Online Databases

Typing the full journal name followed by the word abbreviation into a Google search will bring up the abbreviation with a strict ISO4 notation. Caveat, they come up with a full stop (period) on each abbreviated word, which is not what every journal uses.

example Google search : Journal of Wildlife Diseases abbreviation = J. Wildl. Dis.
the journal itself uses J Wildl Dis

Journals in NCBI Databases.
Information in this free database includes publisher, frequency, abbreviation, ISSN, and whether indexed in MEDLINE. Since the NCBI databases cover more than just medicine, this source is useful beyond the health sciences. However, it includes only currently active titles.

JournalSeek.
A database containing information on nearly 100,000 journal titles, including description (aims and scope), abbreviation, homepage, and ISSN.

National Library of Medicine (NLM) Catalog.

This catalog gives you full information on all their indexed journals, including the abbreviation.

PubMed.

PubMed displays the correct journal abbreviation in the article information.