Library Guides: Animal Alternatives: Literature Searching for Animal Research: A Guide: 3. The Search

Step 3: The Database Search Process

Although there are many databases available. not all databases will suit your needs. Selecting a database will depend on the animal model being used and your research question. Although it is recommended that more than one database be consulted, multiple database searches are only mandatory when working with non-human primates.

TU Subscription Databases

PubMed This link opens in a new window
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Recommended Millions of citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and eBooks.
AGRICOLA This link opens in a new window
Records from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Library. Use for animal model selection and food, nutrition and agriculture related literature.
ASFA: Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Provides extensive coverage of research on aquatic organisms for scientists researching the world's living aquatic resources
ProQuest Deep Indexing: Aquatic Sciences supplements ASFA with access to over a million indexed charts, figures, graphs, maps, photographs, and tables from the scholarly research and technical literature.
Biological Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Life science and biomedical research literature with international coverage from more than 4,000 journals as far back as 1926,
PsycINFO This link opens in a new window
Citations and abstracts of journal articles, book chapters, books, dissertations and technical reports, in psychology.
TOXLINE This link opens in a new window
Indexes and abstracts journal articles, books, and technical reports in all areas of toxicology, including chemicals and pharmaceuticals, pesticides, environmental pollutants, and mutagens and teratogens.
Web of Science Core This link opens in a new window
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Interdisciplinary database includes: Science Citation Index Expanded
Zoological Record This link opens in a new window
A leading taxonomic reference and oldest continuing database of animal biology and biodiversity research.

Specialized Alternative Databases

ALTBIB - Alternatives to Animal Testing This link opens in a new window
Search PubMed using ALTBIB animal alternatives search strategy to identify research using non-animal models and animal welfare alternatives.

AltWeb
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health clearinghouse for information on alteratives to animal testing
Norecopa
Norway's National Consensus Platform for the advancement of "the 3 Rs" (Replacement, Reduction, Refinement) in connection with animal experiments.
Refinement and Enrichment for All Laboratory Animals Database
Reference material on all aspects of refinement of housing and handling conditions and environmental enrichment for animals
Mouse Tumor Biology Database Designed to aid researchers in such areas as choosing experimental models, reviewing patterns of mutations in specific cancers, and identifying genes that are commonly mutated across a spectrum of cancers.

ALTBIB Search Hedge
Revised by TU librarians 2015

Free Databases

AGRIS
Contains references on animal husbandry, links to related data resources on the Web, like DBPedia, World Bank, Nature, FAO Fisheries
ECOTOX: Ecotoxicology Database
Provides single chemical toxicity data for aquatic life, terrestrial plants and wildlife. From the U.S. EPA

PubAg This link opens in a new window
Portal to USDA-authored and other highly relevant agricultural research.
TOXNET (NLM Link Resource) This link opens in a new window
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TOXNET and most of NLM's toxicology information services, as part of the broader NLM reorganization, have been integrated into other NLM products and services. The TOXNET page is currently home to links for NLM's toxicology information in those NLM services.