Library Guides: Engineering: Home

Engineering Resources

To search all of Schewe's databases, use the following:

The databases below will be your best bets for starting your research in Engineering. If you are having trouble articles, see our Finding Articles guide, or ask a librarian for help.

arXiv
This database provides access to open access articles in physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, qualitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, economics. The database is maintained by Cornell University.
Association for Computing Machinery
This computer science database provides a complete collection of The Association for Computing Machinery's publications as well as full-text coverage of over 50 journals and magazines relating to computer science and IT.
Deep Blue
Deep Blue is the University of Michigan's permanent, safe, and accessible service for representing our rich intellectual environment. The primary goal of Deep Blue is to provide access to the work that makes Michigan a leader in research, teaching, and creativity. By representing our scholars, from faculty through students, as individuals and as members of communities, Deep Blue provides a framework for preserving and finding the best scholarly and artistic work done at the University. The collection may be browsed by subject, title, author, and date.
DOE Data Explorer
Use the DOE Data Explorer to find scientific research data - such as computer simulations, numeric data files, figures and plots, interactive maps, multimedia, and scientific images - generated in the course of DOE-sponsored research in various science disciplines. The DOE Data Explorer includes a database of citations prepared by the Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) based on the information found at data-hosting Web sites.
Engineering, Design, and Manufacturing Videos
A collection of mechanical engineering videos from Engineering Motion.
Engineering Services (DES)
The Division of Engineering Services (DES) is the lead project delivery organization for the design, construction, and oversight of bridge and other transportation structures. DES is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary engineering organization committed to providing our clients with quality products and services in a timely manner.
National Technical Reports Library (NTRL)
The National Technical Information Service acquires, indexes, abstracts, and archives the largest collection of U.S. government-sponsored technical reports in existence. The National Technical Reports Library (NTRL) offers access to these authenticated government technical reports to libraries and technical information users. Find index entries for over 3 million titles, and find full-text access to over 800,000 titles in PDF format.
OSTI.gov
A portal to free, publicly-available R&D results including technical reports, bibliographic citations, journal articles, conference papers, books, patents, multimedia, software, and data information on science, technology, and engineering from the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI).
PASCAL and FRANCIS
The site is an archive of the PASCAL and FRANCIS bibliographic databases in exact, human and social sciences, produced by the Inist-CNRS from 1972 to 2015. It provides access to more than 20 millions references (articles, patents, maps, conferences, books, reports and thesis) in exact sciences and technology, in biological and medical sciences, in art, archaeology, economics, ethnology, geography, history of science and technology, literature, linguistics, administrative and legal sciences, education and religion sciences. Stopped in 2015, this archive does not report any new documentary resource.
RMIT Research Repository
The RMIT Research Repository is an open access institutional repository providing free, searchable access to research publications authored by RMIT University staff and students.
Science Reference Source
Provides full text for hundreds of science magazines, journals, reference books and high-quality videos. The database also contains science experiments, curriculum-aligned lesson plans, and a vast image collection.
Technical Report Archive and Image Library (TRAIL)
TRAIL identifies, acquires, catalogs, digitizes and provides unrestricted access to U.S. government agency technical reports.

If you're just starting out as an engineering student and need to get some background/fundamentals, the following can help:

The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile by Nick Georgano (Editor)
ISBN: 9781579582937

Publication Date: 2000-10-01
Scientific Encyclopedia by Glenn D. Considine (Editor-In-Chief); Peter Kulik (Editor)
Call Number: R 503 V269 2008

ISBN: 9780471332305

Publication Date: 2002-07-01

The best place to find books about engineering is in the Schewe Library Catalog or in the library on the shelves primarily in the 620 - 629 range (or the 660 range for chemical engineering) on the upper level. If you are having trouble finding more books, see our Finding Books guide. Here are some suggested titles:

Careers in Engineering by Bonnie Szumski; Jill Karson
Call Number: 371.4 C2716en

ISBN: 9781601526762

Publication Date: 2014-04-01
Concise Guide to Software Engineering by Gerard O'Regan
Call Number: 005.1 O661c

ISBN: 9783319577494

Publication Date: 2017-06-08
Engineering a Better Future: Interplay between Engineering, Social Sciences, and Innovation
Call Number: Online resource

Publication Date: 2018

A free, open access eBook. Can be downloaded for free.
Engineering Women: Re-Visioning Women's Scientific Achievements and Impacts
Call Number: 331.48 T5647e

Publication Date: 2016
Software Engineering: Specification, Implementation, Verification by Suad Alagić
Call Number: 005.1 A3169s

ISBN: 9783319615172

Publication Date: 2017-10-02
Sustainability in Construction Engineering
Call Number: Online resource

Publication Date: 2018

An open access guide. Click on "Download PDF" to download for free.

Through the Schewe Library Databases you also have the ability to Search an Individual Journal by Subject. This will allow you to search by journal name or search within a specific journal only, without needing to go through a database first.

Here are some resources that list Engineering free-to-access journals:

Open Access Engineering Journals
A list of Open Access (free) Engineering journals, including information on the Publisher, number of papers available, and citation counts.
Springer Open - Journals in Engineering
More than 30 journals in Engineering, ranging from civil and mechanical engineering to robotics and transportation.

CAMEO Chemicals
CAMEO Chemicals is a tool designed for people who are involved in hazardous material incident response and planning. This tool is part of the CAMEO software suite, and it is available as a website, mobile website, and as a downloadable version that you can run on your own computer. CAMEO Chemicals contains: A library with thousands of datasheets containing response-related information and recommendations for hazardous materials that are commonly transported, used, or stored in the United States. A reactivity prediction tool, which you can use to predict potential reactive hazards between chemicals.
Energy Resources Engineering (Stanford)
Contains full text for most MS, Engineer and PhD reports from 1970 to the present for which permissions by the authors have been obtained. Some older reports are also available.
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
The International Nuclear Information System (INIS) is the leading information source for scientific and technical literature published worldwide on the peaceful applications of nuclear science and technology. INIS maintains a bibliographic database, entitled INIS Database, which currently contains over 2.8 million references with English abstracts from 1970 to the present.
The Materials Project
Harnessing the power of supercomputing and state of the art electronic structure methods, the Materials Project provides open web-based access to computed information on known and predicted materials as well as powerful analysis tools to inspire and design novel materials. The Materials Project is a core program of the Materials Genome Initiative.
NOTE: Register for free to view all content.
NIST Chemistry WebBook
Chemical, physical and spectroscopic data of many chemical substances. Includes IR, NMR, MS, UV, thermochemical data for substances & reactions, etc. Searchable by structure, formula, and property values. Compiled by NIST under the Standard Reference Data Program.
Organic Materials Database
Organic materials database (OMDB) is created and maintained by the research group at Nordita (Stockholm, Sweden) as a part of the research on Dirac materials. OMDB focus is on electronic structure, density of states and other properties for purely organic and organometallic compounds that are known to date. The electronic band structures are calculated using density functional theory for the 6686 crystal structures contained in the Crystallography Open Database. This database is a tool to be used in guided materials search and discovery. OMDB web interface allows for identifying materials with certain target band structure properties specified by the user.
NOTE: Register for free to view all content.
PGM Database
The PGM Database is a collection of published data and internal Johnson Matthey data defining the physical properties and characteristics of platinum group metals and their alloys.
SDBS Spectral Database System
SDBS is an integrated spectral database system for organic compounds,which includes 6 different types of spectra under a directory of the compounds. The six spectra are as follows, an electron impact Mass spectrum (EI-MS), a Fourier transform infrared spectrum (FT-IR), a 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrum, a 13C NMR spectrum, a laser Raman spectrum, and an electron spin resonance (ESR) spectrum.

Civil Engineering Database
The Civil Engineering Database (CEDB) is designed to provide easy bibliographic access to all ASCE publications. The database covers all the journals, conference proceedings, books, standards, manuals, magazines, and newspapers. Journal papers with abstracts go back to 1970.
Earthquake Engineering Online Archives (NISEE)
The Earthquake Engineering Online Archive is a database of significant, publicly-funded research and development literature, photographs, data, and software in earthquake, structural, and geotechnical engineering. It includes full text for EERC, SEMM, and PEER reports published at UC Berkeley, the NISEE software library, and images from EQIIS.
Note: Some reports/publications are available for free
International Database for Civil and Structural Engineering [Structurae]
Discover the diversity of civil, structural and bridge engineering, more than 75,000 structures with over 14,500 participating companies and their products as well as 10,000 engineers and architects, all of that illustrated with 290,000 images. Since 1998 Structurae has been providing bridge, civil and structural engineers with information on the design and construction of construction projects from around the world including profiles on the companies and individuals involved as well as product descriptions. By now the site has grown into a unique information network and research tool for practising engineers and students majoring in civil and structural engineering but also for architects and other professionals in the construction industry.
MCEER/NCEER Publications
Since 1987, MCEER, formerly the Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (MCEER) and the National Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (NCEER), has produced over 600 publications that describe the latest research and developments on a wide variety of topics related to earthquake engineering and extreme events.
TRID
TRID is an integrated database that combines the records from TRB’s Transportation Research Information Services (TRIS) Database and the OECD’s Joint Transport Research Centre’s International Transport Research Documentation (ITRD) Database. TRID provides access to more than one million records of transportation research worldwide.
Significant Earthquake Database
Searchable database contains information on destructive earthquakes from 2150 B.C. to the present that meet at least one of the following criteria: Moderate damage (approximately $1 million or more), 10 or more deaths, Magnitude 7.5 or greater, Modified Mercalli Intensity X or greater, or the earthquake generated a tsunami.

eFunda: Engineering Fundamentals
eFunda is all about the basics, for most part, that means college level material covered in engineering schools.
Electrical4U
Electrical4U is dedicated to the teaching and sharing of all things related to electrical and electronics engineering.
ElectroMechanical
Click on the categories on the left to view the learning objects in categories. These interactive learning objects focus on concepts that cover a broad-based electromechanical program.
MIT Open Courseware: Circuits and Electronics
MIT Open Courseware: Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
TechRxiv
TechRxiv is an open, moderated preprint server for unpublished research in electrical engineering, computer science, and related technology.
Wolfram/Alpha Examples for Electrical Engineering
Wolfram/Alpha Examples for Electric Circuits
Wolfram/Alpha Examples for Energy Resources

Efunda
Efunda is an information resource for engineering professionals that provides a variety of information to aid in the solution of complex design problems. Topics include materials, processes, formulas, vendors and products, units, mathematics, and designs.
Mechanical Engineering Commons
Full text of over 23,400 papers related to mechanical engineering.
Mechanical Engineering Videos
A collection of mechanical engineering videos from Engineering Motion.

Here are some free CAD Resources. CAD, stands for computer-aided design or computer-aided drafting. These resources are especially useful for mechanical engineers who can look-up diagrams of parts and designs.

3D Content Central
Free 3D and 2D CAD files. Works with Solidworks.
Cadenas 3D Find It
Browse CAD and BIM catalogs
Grab CAD
Free computer aided design/ drawing database for many types of software.
McMaster Carr
Free CAD files available
Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA)
Traceparts
CAD database; Free downloads of 3D CAD models

You can find reliable and high-quality videos on a variety of topics below:

Kanopy Videos at Schewe Library

You can find reliable and high-quality engineering videos on the following topics:

Here are some free-to-access Engineering software:

Arduino Software Download
An open-source electronic prototyping platform enabling users to create interactive electronic objects.
SciPy
An open-source software for mathematics, science, and engineering.

Here are some resources to learn how to cite sources in IEEE citation format:

IEEE Citation Guide (Knox College)
This website provides citation examples for a variety of sources, including articles, books, reports, websites, computer programs, data sets, and more
Citing with IEEE (University of Michigan)
Provides information to cite sources correctly in IEEE, with specific info about in-text citations and reference lists.
IEEE Reference Quick Guide
Official IEEE Quick Guide. Updated 2023.

Other Helpful Resources

For more help finding books, click here

For more help finding articles, click here

For additional citation help, click here

Have a question?

You are welcome to contact us individually at:

Jaeda Calaway - Information Literacy Instructor and Student Research Support Specialist
217.245.3207

McKenna Jacquemet - Research Services and Information Literacy Librarian

217.245.3117

Bree Kirsch - Director of the Library

217.245.3573

Or you can ask a question here!