Physics

Through the Library you have access to a wealth of electronic resources, only a fraction of which are findable through Virgo. You can search any of the many databases available. But this guide will also introduce you to ways that you can search the external web, using Google Scholar or simply searching a publisher's journal website for a particular article to get instant access to the article if UVA subscribes, or to submit a pre-populated ILL request form if we don't.

Accessing electronic resources

• Accessing Electronic Resources (On and Off Grounds)
• Library Electronic Database Use Policy

Quickest path to full-text articles

• Libkey Nomad Browser Extension - Locates subscribed or open access full-text articles when you view an article webpage. Prepares an ILL request for your submission if we don't have access to the article. This is usually the quickest tool to use for finding an article.

    Overleaf   &  

Everyone with a virginia.edu email address is entitled to a free Pro account on the Overleaf platform, which is designed for collaborative editing of LaTeX documents. You no longer need to keep an installation of LaTeX up-to-date locally, just use Overleaf.

• Sign up for your free Overleaf account
• Browse the Overleaf Learn Wiki
• Overleaf for LaTeX Theses & Dissertations
• Overleaf/LaTeX for Scholarly Writing & Publication
• LaTeX references available online through UVA Library
• LaTeX Wikibooks resource

      ORCID iD

Every researcher should have an ORCID iD. These are free, portable, unique identifiers which allow you to unambiguously associate all of your research products with each other. Most publishers and funding agencies require the use of an ORCID, but most researchers don't take full advantage of their ORCID, which can serve as a self-updating CV, if properly set up. As one example of the possibilities, you can view Ricky's ORCID profile.

• More information on ORCIDs, including how to use them at UVA
• Register for your ORCID iD
• Authorize ADS to import your papers into ORCID:
  • ADS blog post
  • ADS help page
  • ESO Library step-by-step guide

ADS

The Astrophysical Data System is a specialized library portal system for researchers in astronomy and physics. It is one of the best portals available in any field of research, and with a few steps you can optimize it to work for you. ADS maintains three bibliographic databases containing more than 13 million records covering publications in Astronomy and Astrophysics, Physics, and the arXiv e-prints server. Both the abstracts and the full-text of major astronomy and physics publications are indexed and searchable.

But ADS provides much more! It tracks citations and usage of its records to provide advanced discovery and evaluation capabilities. Integrated in its databases, the ADS provides access and pointers to a wealth of external resources, including electronic articles available from publisher’s websites, astronomical object information, data catalogs and data sets hosted by external archives. It strives to integrate itself completely into the research workflow.

• Take a look at the ADS Blog to get a sense of the existing features
• Subscribe to the ADS Newsletter to receive a monthly update on new features
• Learn about basic search query syntax
• Create Bibtex or AASTeX bibliography files from ADS results (customized formats)
• Create a myADS account in order to:
  • Create libraries, which can be exported, shared, or used to power other searches
  • Add a library link for the UVA Library (so you can access the peer reviewed electronic resources the Library subscribes to, directly from the ADS search results)
  • Link your ORCID iD with your ADS papers
• Setup rules to trigger automatic email alerts when new papers:
  • Are posted to arXiV in a given subject area.
  • Come out from specific authors.
  • Come out that cite particular papers
  • Are released which match other criteria (e.g., papers read by users who are also reading the 200 most cited papers on a certain topic).