Library

Library Catalogs

Bowdoin College Library Catalog
Books, videos, government documents, etc. in Bowdoin's library.

NExpress
A combined catalog containing the library holdings of Bowdoin, Bates, Colby, Wellesley, Williams, Middlebury, and Northeastern. Requests take 2-3 days.

MaineCat
Includes the holdings of most Maine libraries. Requests take 2-5 days

WorldCat
A combined database of many library catalogs worldwide. Request items found in WorldCat through our Interlibrary Loan service.

Reference Sources

Lexicon of Geologic Names of the United States. 1966-1985
U. S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1200, 6 volumes
Washington, DC: Government Printing Office 1966.
Science Reference QE 645 L4

Encyclopedia of Earth Science Series
A fifteen-volume series published in the 1970s and early '80s. Though somewhat dated, still and excellent source for background material. Nothing has been published since to equal it. However, be sure to find up-to-date information from periodical indexes if your topic is time-sensitive.

Encyclopedia of Geochemistry and Environmental Science
Encyclopedia of Earth Science Series, Volume IVA.
New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co. 1972.
Science Ref QE515. F24

Encyclopedia of Applied Geology
Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences, Volume XIII.
New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co. 1984
Science Ref QE5. E5

Encyclopedia of Sedimentology
Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences, Volume VI.
New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co. 1978
Science Ref QE471. E49

Encyclopedia of Mineralogy
Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences, Volume IVB.
pStroudsburg, Pa. : Hutchinson Ross Pub. Co. 1981.
Science Ref QE355 .E49

Encyclopedia of World Regional Geology Part 1:
Western Hemisphere (Including Antarctica and Australia)
Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences, Volume VIII.
Stroudsberg, PA: Dowden, Huchinson & Ross, Inc. 1975.
Science Ref QE5 .F33 pt.1.

Glossary of Geology
Washington, DC: American Geological Institute, 1972.
Science Ref QE5 .G37

MacMillan Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences
Two Volumes.
New York : MacMillan Reference USA, 1996
Science Ref QE5 .E5137 1996

Suggestions to Authors of the Reports of the United States Geological Survey 7th Edition. Washington, DC: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1991.
Science Document Section I 19.2 Su 3/5/991

Periodicals and Annual Reviews

To see a list of geology periodicals owned by Bowdoin, search by subject. Examples:
Geology-Periodicals

Annual Reviews

Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Science
1973 to present. Available in print and online.
Science QE1.A674

Annual Review of Physical Chemistry
1950 to present
Available in print and online.
Science QD1 .A732

Reviews in Mineralogy , con’t by Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry
Available in print 1981 to present; and online: 2003 to present
Science QE 351 .M44

Progress in Inorganic Chemistry
1959 to present.
Science QD151 .P76

Physics and Chemistry of the Earth
v.1-21,22 pt.3-v.23 1956-98.
Science QE 501 .P53

Web Sites

PALEOMAPS
An earth history atlas.

EROS Data Center: Earth resources observation systems.
An archive of satellite images, aerial photographs, and digital maps recording land-surface phenomena.

GEODE
The data sets include demographics, environmental information, energy and mineral resource data.

NASA Earth Observatory
A good gateway site for oceanographic and climatological data sets and other publications.

United States Geological Survey
Links to publications and data, regional and international geologic material.

Maine Geological Survey

Thesaurus of Geographic Names (Getty Information Institute)
900,000 places around the world. Entries include latitude and longitude, place name and type, as well as geographical, historical, and economic information.

Canadian Geographic Names
Authoritative source of over 500,000 geographical names in Canada. Does distance calculation and offers large-scale maps.

Specialized Research Skills

The literature of Geology is a bit more complex than in most of the other sciences. There are many different kinds of publications that Geology students must know how to find in the library.

Books and journal articles are important, of course, and the Library Catalog is the best way to find out what books and journals the library owns. Check out Using the Library Catalog for more information.

The Federal Government is an important publisher of geologic information. Government publications are organized according to the agency that produced them. The United States Geological Survey, the Department of Agriculture, NOAA (a bureau of the Commerce Department) are just a few of the agencies that publish information of interest to geologists. The Library receives about 30% of the federal documents published, but most government documents are not yet listed in the Library Catalog. Fortunately, GeoRef indexes many federal documents. If you wish to search just for federal documents held in the Bowdoin College Libraries, try searching the Government Publications Monthly Catalog or "Marcive," and use the "Holdings" function.

To find documents in the Library, once you've found references with call numbers: The Science Library has USGS documents (call numbers beginning with I 19). This is a special section at the end of the 2nd floor stacks for print documents and also a filing cabinet for CDs on the first floor. Maps are on the ground floor. You’ll find all other government documents at the Main Library, in the reference section, or in the Government Documents Department on the lower level.

Reports of state Geological Surveys can also be important information sources. We have some publications from Maine and other states in the Science Library, all of these series are cataloged just like books, have ordinary call numbers, and are listed by series in the Library Catalog. Some of the Maine publications are held in the Government Documents Department at the Main Library. The only good index we have for state publications is GeoRef.