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Getting Started

Welcome

Welcome to the Forensic Science Research Guide! Here you can find tips on how to find and use information pertaining to Forensic Science. Please explore the links and feel free to contact us for any additional information or help using our resources.

Cite your References!

Find information on popular reference styles through our "Citation Style Guide." Remember to use the style asked for by your professor, and to check your work.

Use the online reference tool Zotero to help import, manage and export bibliographic references in various styles.

Subject Librarian

SRakovac's picture
Name: Sandra Rakovac
Position Title: Liaison Librarian: Science, Engineering and Architecture
Email Address: srakovac@laurentian.ca
Extension: 5132
Office Location: JND 30-252 & SA-222

Getting Articles

Forensic Science Recommended Databases

  • BIOSIS Citation Index ?

    Description: Provides comprehensive view of life sciences research since 1926.

  • Nexis Uni ?

    Description: Nexis Uni is a rich source of news, business and legal information.

  • MEDLINE (Ovid) ?

    Description: The latest bibliographic citations and author abstracts from more than 5,200 biomedicine and life sciences journals in nearly 40 languages. Every citation is indexed using the National Library of Medicine's Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) controlled vocabulary. MEDLINE is the largest subset of citations in the PubMed database. Searching MEDLINE via Ovid offers better support for complex literature reviews with the adjacency (ADJn) operator to find terms within "n" words of each other.

  • Web of Science ?

    Description: A comprehensive research platform that brings together many different types of content including journal articles, patents, websites, conference proceedings, and open access material. Web of Science is located within Web of Knowledge. This resource offers access to journal articles in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. Web of Science contains over 100 years of research, fully indexed and cross-searchable.

Theses and Dissertations

For additional information on advanced research as well as theses and dissertations, please consult our Research Guide for Advanced Studies.

Forensic Science Related Databases

  • Alcohol Studies Database ?

    Description: "Contains over 80,000 citations for journal articles, books, book chapters, dissertations, conference papers, and audio-visual materials."

  • Google Scholar ?

    Description: "Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature... across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites."

  • Humanities & Social Sciences Index Retrospective: 1907-1984 ?

    Description: Humanities & Social Sciences Index Retrospective™: 1907-1984 offers a broad range of subject coverage in the humanities and social sciences with high-quality indexing of more than 1,300,000 articles in nearly 1,100 periodicals, dating as far back as 1907, as well as citations of over 240,000 book reviews.

  • JSTOR ?

    Description: JSTOR includes the archives of over one thousand leading academic journals across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as select monographs and other materials valuable for academic work. The entire corpus is full-text searchable, offers search term highlighting, includes high-quality images, and is interlinked by millions of citations and references. Note: Normally the journals in JSTOR are five years from current; further, all JSTOR journals are available through the "Get it @ Laurentian" link from other databases. JSTOR should NOT be used as at the first resort.

  • National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) Abstracts Database ?

    Description: Contains summaries of the more than 220,000 criminal justice, juvenile justice, and substance abuse resources housed in the NCJRS Library collection. This Database contains abstracts, not full-text documents.

  • PsycINFO ?

    Description: PsycINFO is an electronic bibliographic database providing abstracts and citations to the scholarly literature in the psychological, social, behavioral, and health sciences. The database includes material of relevance to psychologists and professionals in related fields such as psychiatry, management, business, education, social science, neuroscience, law, medicine, and social work. Updated weekly, PsycINFO provides access to journal articles, books, chapters, and dissertations.

  • Web of Science ?

    Description: A comprehensive research platform that brings together many different types of content including journal articles, patents, websites, conference proceedings, and open access material. Web of Science is located within Web of Knowledge. This resource offers access to journal articles in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. Web of Science contains over 100 years of research, fully indexed and cross-searchable.

Searching for Books

Searching the Catalogue

The catalogue is your primary tool for finding books in the J.N. Desmarais Library. You can also use the catalogue to find other materials, including government publications and journals (including individual articles).

You can search the catalogue by:

  • Title
  • Author/Creator
  • Subject
  • Call Number

When you know the book you are searching for, pick Title or Author; when you are searching for a topic, start with Keyword unless you know the exact Subject heading describing your topic.

More on searching the Catalogue is available in Module 5 of the Research Skills Tutorial in D2L.

Additional Print Resources

  • Forensic Science: An Illustrated Dictionary (2nd Floor: Ref. HV 8073 B677 2004)
  • Color Atlas and Manual of Microscopy for Criminalists, Chemists, and Conservators (3rd Floor: QH 205.2 P486 2004)

Shelf Searching

Laurentian uses LC Classification. Some patrons may wish to browse for books in the stacks; Forensic Science is generally classified under HV - Social pathology, public welfare, and criminology.

Some related HV subclassifications are:

  • HV6001-7220.5 Criminology
  • HV6035-6197 Criminal anthropology
  • HV6055-6079 Criminals--identification
  • HV6071 Legal photography (criminology)
  • HV6074 Fingerprints
  • HV6675-6685 Forgery
  • HV7936 Evidence preservation
  • HV8073-8079 Criminal investigation
  • HV8073 Chemistry, forensic (general)
  • HV8073-8077.35 Identification (criminal investigation)
  • HV8075 Typewriting--identification
  • HV8077.5 Footprints--identification
  • HV8074-8076 Writing--identification
  • HV8077 Firearms--identification.  Forensic ballistics
  • HV8079 Arson investigation.  Computer crimes--investigation

Further related classifications are GN which includes Forensic Anthropology and RA which includes Forensic Medicine.

 

WorldCat

With nearly 200 million records representing titles held by nearly 75,000 libraries you will find almost any book ever published in the English language in WorldCat.
 
 

Getting E-books

E-books

E-books are located in two different places:
  • Some may be located by using the library’s catalogue and selecting "Books & eBooks" as the "Material Type" and then further filtering your results by "Available online". 
  • E-books can also be located by searching in e-book collections. Searching in these collections is the same as searching in a database.

Recommended E-book Collections for the Sciences

  • ForensicNetBase ?

    Description: Over 700 ebooks in the forensic and criminal science

  • Books at Ovid ?

    Description: over 450 ebooks in the health sciences

  • Ebook Central ?

    Description: close to 40,000 ebooks in multiple subject areas

  • Oxford Scholarship Online ?

    Description: 22,909 ebooks in multiple subject areas as of April 2024.

  • ScienceDirect ?

    Description: A full-text scientific database offering journal articles and book chapters from nearly 2,500 journals and 26,000 books in the fields of physical, life, health and social sciences, engineering and the humanities.

  • Springer LINK ?

    Description: SpringerLink currently offers 2,777 fully peer-reviewed journals and over 151,000 books online.

  • Scholars Portal - Ebooks ?

    Description: Over 345,000 ebooks in multiple subject areas. Select Full Text Only to find only those ebooks with full text.

Get Films

Online Film Collections

  • NFB (National Film Board) ?

    Description: The NFB's online Screening Room features over 3,000 films, excerpts, trailers and interactive works (including) documentaries, animation, experimental films and fiction (with a Canadian context or perspective.)

Need a Film Not in Laurentian's Online Film Collections?

​Consult: Watmedia (Provincial Multi-media Catalogue).  Material held by Laurentian may be signed out in the library. To order a film not available at Laurentian, please email LUFilmLibrary@laurentian.ca and specify the date(s) you require the item.

Questions:  Please contact Ginette Gervais, coordinator of interlibrary loan.