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Subject-specific eGuides

Computer Science

Searching for resources

There are two key library catalogues you may use when studying at Cambridge:

Girton Library catalogue (Heritage) – search Girton Library’s collection and see if items are available or already on loan. See our eGuide for further information.

iDiscover – to search across the University’s print and electronic collections (including books, eBooks, journals, newspapers, articles and much more, from other colleges, faculty and department libraries, and the University Library. Most, but not all, of Girton’s collection can be found here. See our Searching iDiscover eGuide for further information.

You will be able to borrow from Girton’s Library and the University Library and you may also find it helpful to visit and use the Betty & Gordon Moore Library. However, there may be other libraries within Cambridge which stock useful resources. For a full list of the Cambridge libraries see the directory and check each library for access guidelines.

Search Spacefinder to find places of study outside of College.

Subject-specific resources

Bibliographic databases

  • Trier bibliography (DBLP) The computer science bibliography at the University of Trier, with a database of more than 600,000 articles. In addition to a searchable database, there are browsable indices by conference names, journals and subjects.
  • ACM Guide to Computing literature The database of bibliographic citations maintained by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), but covering a wide range of books and journals and not just those published by the ACM. It is also possible to browse the database by subject classification.
  • CiteSeer A tool to search either for papers and other documents or for citations of those. There is also a facility to add papers to the archive and comprehensive online documentation.
  • Google Scholar Google Scholar is the academic version of the popular internet search engine. It will search for books, citations and web pages. Beware, however, that some of the resources it finds may require a current subscription before viewing them.
  • Web of Science Provides access to the Science citation index, Journal citation reports, an index to conference proceedings, and current awareness service. To use Web of Science you will need a Raven password. Please contact the librarian for more details.
  • BIDS Access to a range of services, particularly Ingenta Journals (a range of full text electronic journals) and INSPEC (a bibliographic service produced by the Institute of Electrical Engineers). This service again requires an Athens password.
  • Scopus Scopus is a bibliographic database with broad coverage of abstracts and citations in science, technology and medicine, including computer science. The coverage includes a large number of peer-reviewed computing journals and conference proceedings. For more information about the database's coverage, please see here.

Electronic journals and resources

There are potentially very many electronic journals to which we have access, usually from any machine within the University (cam.ac.uk domain). Some resources will require a password which may be obtained from the librarian. Similarly, should you have difficulty with any of the electronic journals, please contact the library in the first instance.

  • University Library list of electronic resources The complete listing of electronic resources (such as e-books, online databases and journals) available within the university, together with details of the mode of access. The complete list is rather large and may be searched or browsed by subject.​​​​​​
  • Electronic journals via the ejournals@cambridge portal This is now the recommended mode of accessing all of the university wide electronic journals as it provides more information on mode of access and collects together all links to a single title. The older pages listed above now provide an interface similar to this one.
  • ACM Digital library Access to the journals and publications of the Association for Computing machinery.
  • IEEE Xplore The IEEE Electronic Library. Our subscription now includes conference proceedings and standards, making this an important resource in many areas of computer science.
  • Lecture notes in computer science (LNCS) The major monographic series which now runs to over 5000 volumes. The full text of individual chapters and papers from all volumes published since 1997 may be accessed online.
  • British Standards Online The online collection of British Standards. If you need to access this resource from outside of the University, then please use this link instead (you will need to log-in using Raven. Please note that from February 2021 you will need to install a browser plug-in called FileOpen in order to open documents from British Standards Online. Instructions for doing this are available.
  • O'Reilly for Higher Education A major collection of electronic books, including the famous O'Reilly computing books. Individual titles can be found in iDiscover, or the available content can be browsed directly.
  • Elsevier ScienceDirect The Elsevier electronic journals. We are now able to offer access to the entire backfile, providing a substantial number of titles; specifically there are over a hundred titles covering computer science and related areas. For more information and a list of computing titles please click here.

General reference

  • Oxford English dictionary Online access to the complete dictionary which is both much more comprehensive and up to date than the printed copy in the library. If you need to access this from outside of the cam.ac.uk domain then you will need an athens password.
  • O'Reilly Open access books A small collection of open access, full text, online books from O'Reilly. These online books cover a range of topics and are in the same style as the famous printed books from the same publisher. Many are now out of print but still contain valuable information.
  • Kaye and Laby tables of physical and chemical constants A comprehensive source of frequently used data from physics and chemistry, now freely available online. It contains all of the tables from the 16th edition published in 1995, and offers a browsable table of contents as well as a search facility.
Here is a list of technical reports on computer science from universities and research departments worldwide, many of which are freely available.
 

Help within college

Library staff can provide support and assistance. You can book an appointment with us or ask a question via library@girton.cam.ac.uk.