Research Guides: Soil Science Research Guide: Finding Articles

Databases: Highly Recommended

Agricola

[ProQuest] Primary database for agricultural research covering animal science, horticulture, entomology, forestry, land management, nutrition, pesticides, soil science and other related topics.
ScienceDirect (Elsevier)

[Elsevier] Leading full-text scientific database offering journal articles and book chapters from more than 2,500 journals and almost 20,000 books. Set up a personal account to obtain special services such as table of contents mailings.
BIOSIS Previews
[Clarivate] An expansive index to life sciences and biomedical research covering pre-clinical and experimental research, methods and instrumentation, animal studies, and more.

FS INFO Database
Indexes forest and range research of interest to researchers and managers in the US Forest Service, with links to fulltext if available.

Databases: Also Recommended

AGRIS
Catalog and index to the collections of the National Agricultural Library, as well as a primary public source for world-wide access to agricultural information. The database covers materials in all formats and periods, including printed works from the 15th century.
CE Database - American Society of Civil Engineers (Discontinued Dec. 1 2025)
Index to all of the society publications - journals, conference publications, and books - with access to over 97,000 bibliographic and abstracted records. If you get a 502 Bad Gateway error, please clear your browser cookies and try the link again.
Environmental Sciences and Pollution Management (currently included in Agricultural & Environmental Science Collection)
[ProQuest]
Broad ranging index to environmental science and pollution publications in scientific journals, conference proceedings, reports, monographs, books and government publications.
Geobase
[Elsevier] Index to research literature on the earth sciences, ecology, geology, human and physical geography, environmental sciences, oceanography, geomechanics, alternative energy sources, pollution, waste management, and nature conservation.
SciFinderⁿ
Research discovery tool that provides access to the world's literature in chemistry, biochemistry, and chemical engineering. As the most comprehensive resource for research in chemistry and chemistry-related fields, it also provides access to research from many related scientific disciplines, including biomedical sciences, materials science, agricultural science, and more. You will need to complete the registration process to access the database.
For information about access and use, visit our SciFinderⁿ Guide.

Other Databases to Consider

Google Scholar
Indexes scholarly journal articles and web pages in all academic disciplines

NTIS Database (National Technical Information Service)
Indexes over 3 million publications covering over 350 subject areas including technical, scientific, and related-business reports, produced by or for a government agency. Some international reports are included.
US Government Publications Monthly Catalog
Finding tool for federal publications that includes descriptive records for historical and current publications and provides direct links to those that are available online. Users can search by authoring agency, title, subject, and general key word, or click on "Advanced Search" for more options.
WorldCat
Identify and locate resources in library collections worldwide. Connect to materials at Cal Poly Humboldt and other libraries from WorldCat records and article citations.

Soil Science Journals

The research paper published in a peer-reviewed journal represents the most important "primary" source of information in soil science. The Searching the Scientific Literature research guide discusses other general information sources in the sciences.

In the CPH Library the Journal Finder lists soil science journals by journal title that are available to CPH students, faculty and staff. Search "soil" and you can use the filters on the left panel for "Full-text online," "Peer-reviewed Journals," and "Held by library." If not available locally, copies can be requested through the Library's efficient Resource Sharing service.

The following sources list important soil science journals by title:

SCImago Journal & Country Rank. Lists highly cited soil science journals.
Google Scholar Soil Sciences - Top Publications List. Ranks the top 20 publications in soil sciences.

Where's the full text?

If a database doesn't have the full text of an article, look for the link with the text above to see if the article is in another Cal Poly Humboldt database.

Can't find it anywhere? Use our Resource Sharing/ Interlibrary Loan (ILL) service to order articles not available in our databases. It's free!

Google Scholar

Google Scholar is a great tool for finding scholarly content, including journal articles. Google Scholar crawls the table of contents of scholarly publications and links to the full text when available. In order to get access to more articles in full text, be sure to change your settings to include content that the Cal Poly Humboldt Library has purchased for you to access. Otherwise, unless an article is Open Access, you will likely be asked to purchase the article.

1. First, click on the "Settings" link in Google Scholar.

2. Then, click on "Library Links."

3. Next, search for "Cal Poly Humboldt" and check the box next to "Cal Poly Humboldt - Find It @ Humboldt" and click "Save."

4. Now, when you do a search in Google Scholar, you will see an extra link either below or to the right of the article citation (you may need to click on "More" to see it).

5. The Find it @ Humboldt link will tell you where to access the full text if we have it or will link you to interlibrary loan to request it (may take up to 2 weeks, but most arrive much quicker). Keep in mind that most of the library's articles are available electronically through the databases but there are some that are in print or microfilm. Stop by the Research Help Desk on the first floor of the library if you need help finding these articles.

Looking For A Specific Journal?

Use the Journal Search to find journals by title or ISSN.