A Note on Computer Science Scholarship
Unlike other scholars in the natural sciences and social sciences, computer scientists do not communicate most of their scholarly findings in journals. They prefer to publish in conference proceedings, the printed version of presentations at academic meetings, conferences, symposia, etc. You can find conference proceedings in BU Libraries Search like any other item in the BU Libraries collections. Some of them are published as single books while others are published periodically like journals.
The resources listed below will guide you to both journal articles and papers published in conference proceedings.
Core Databases
These resources will help you to find scholarly literature on computer science, often including related disciplines like mathematics and engineering.
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ACM Digital Library This link opens in a new window
ACM Digital Library is a database of all materials published by the Association for Computing Machinery, including articles and conference proceedings. Abstracts of books are also provided.
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CiteSeerXCiteSeerX is a library of computer science research with citation data extraction capabilities for use in analysis.
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Engineering Village This link opens in a new window
Engineering Village is a discovery platform that allows researchers to search across multiple databases (Compendex and Inspec) simultaneously. The platform provides powerful features to refine and filter searches and to sort and format search results and link to full text articles.
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IEEE Xplore This link opens in a new windowIEEE Xplore Digital Library includes access to the full text of IEEE content published since 1988 with select content published since 1872 from IEEE journals, transactions, and magazines, IEEE conference proceedings, IET journals and conference proceedings and the IEEE-Wiley eBooks Library including titles from 1974-2015.
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MathSciNet This link opens in a new window
MathSciNet is a database of reviews, abstracts and bibliographic information for the mathematical sciences. Reviews are classified and searchable according to the Mathematics Subject Classification. Continues the publication Mathematical Reviews, first published in 1940. Reviewers are selected by a staff of professional mathematicians to write reviews of current literature.
General Science/Engineering Databases
These databases do not focus on computer science or related literature solely, but they are good choices for interdisciplinary research.
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arXiv.org This link opens in a new windowarXiv is an open-access electronic archive and distribution server for research articles in physics, mathematics, computer science, nonlinear sciences, quantitative biology and statistics.
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Web of Science This link opens in a new window
This database is a core general science resource, covering all aspects of scientific literature. It also has a number of tools that make it a unique resource for finding scholarly literature. Item records come with links both to the works cited by the paper in question and the future works that cite that paper. Web of Science also allows the user to set up email alerts for specific authors or topics, provides researcher profiles, and to use associated journal metrics provided by the vendor.
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General Science Full Text This link opens in a new window
A multidisciplinary science database designed for students and non-specialists. Subjects includes astronomy, biology, botany, chemistry, conservation, health, medicine, oceanography, physics, and zoology. Covers leading journals and magazines, biographical sketches, symposia, conferences, review articles, and special issues of journals. Also covers the New York Times Science Section and cites book reviews.
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Google Scholar This link opens in a new windowGoogle Scholar provides access to academic literature from many disciplines. The sources include articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions and come from diverse places including academic publishers, online repositories and other websites.
Getting Books Not Available at BU
There are several ways you can obtain books or articles that we do not own. These include:
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WorldCat Discovery. WorldCat Discovery allows current BU faculty, staff, and students to borrow books directly from other Boston Library Consortium libraries. Turnaround time is approximately three working days. (How to use WorldCat Discovery)
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Interlibrary Loan. Interlibrary Loan services allow current BU faculty, staff, and students to request books, articles, book chapters, and other materials that our ILL staff will obtain from other libraries. Books generally take 2-4 weeks to arrive; articles are generally delivered electronically within 1-2 days.
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ILL online request forms for all patrons except those affiliated with the Schools of Law and Medicine
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Law Library's interlibrary loan page for Law School affiliates
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Alumni Medical Library’s ILL form for Medical School affilliates
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For general inquires to the Interlibrary Loan office, please call (617) 353-3706 or email ILLMML@bu.edu.
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- BLC Cards. A Boston Library Consortium Card allows the bearer to borrow—in person—circulating material from a member library, just as you would from a BU library. Boston University faculty, staff, and students on the Charles River Campus may obtain a Consortium Card by filling out an application form. Medical Campus affiliates apply at the Alumni Medical Library.
