1. Find basic information on your topic.
2. Use indexes to discover research articles.
3. Locate those articles either in print or online using the online catalog.

Your first step in doing research will be finding background information on your topic. If you are looking for information on endangered species, one of the most important things you will need is the scientific name of an organism. For example, the scientific name of the red wolf is Canis rufus. An organism may have many common names, but the scientific name is fairly standard in the research literature. You will need to use the scientific name rather than the common name, or perhaps both, to conduct further research.

The following selected print and online resources will give you a good start. Most include references to research articles. Many others resources are available in the Zoology Section Library; see a reference librarian if you would like some help.

Endangered Species Program
This is the site of the United States Government's Endangered Species Program. It includes information on organisms listed as endangered or threatened, including links to federal documents.

NatureServe Explorer
NatureServe Explorer provides conservation information on more than 50,000 species in Canada and the United States.

IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
IUCN, the World Conservation Union, produces this list of species (mostly birds and mammals) from around the world that are in danger of extinction.

Birds of North America
The Birds of North America Online is a comprehensive reference covering the life histories of North American birds. Produced by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, it includes detailed scientific information, illustrations, video, and sound recordings.

Beacham's guide to the endangered species of North America. Detroit, MI: Gale Group, 2000.
Zoology Section Library Ref QH77.N56 B43 2000
Beacham's guide to international endangered species. Osprey, Fla. : Beacham Pub., 1998-.
Zoology Section Library Ref QL82 .B435 1998
Davis Library Ref QL82 .B435 1998
These two publications present brief summaries of the conservation status of selected North American and international endangered species.

Mammalian species. New York: American Society of Mammalogists, 1969-.
Zoology Section Library Ref QL700 .M3
This ongoing publication presents summaries of the biology of mammal species from around the world. Use the final index pamphlet to find species.

To find articles on endangered species, you will need to use an index to find citations. Which index you choose depends on the type of article you are looking for and the subject area you doing research in. Tools like BIOSIS Previews and Zoological Records primary index the scholarly literature. These are articles where scientists present the findings of their original research to other scientists. Such articles are often called primary literature. They are also usually peer reviewed, meaning that other scientists review the articles before publication to ensure quality.

Other indexes include articles that report on the scholarly literature for more general readers. This is called the popular or secondary literature, because it is a step removed from the original research. Some indexes such as BasicBIOSIS and Expanded Academic ASAP include both types of articles.

Here are some selected indexes:

BIOSIS Previews
BIOSIS is the full version of the BIOSIS database. It's more comprehensive than BasicBIOSIS and focuses on scholarly research material.

Zoological Record
Zoological Record is a comprehensive index to the scholarly literature on wild animals. It includes some obscure material, but use it if you have problems finding articles in the other indexes. Use the thesaurus to search for subject words.

Expanded Academic ASAP
You may have used this for other research projects. It indexes scholarly and non-scholarly literature across a wide variety of disciplines, but is not as comprehensive as the subject-specific indexes above.

Although some online indexes provide direct links to online journals, most will just provide you with a citation to the article. The easiest way to find the article is to do a search in the online catalog. The online catalog record will tell you if the title is available electronically or held in one of the campus libraries.

To search for journals in the online catalog:

1. Go to the online catalog page.
2. Enter the name of the journal in the search box (not the title of the article).
3. Under Select Search Type: select Title (omit initial article).
4. Under Optional Search Limits: select Journal/Magazine.
5. Press the Search button.

Contact:
David Romito (dromito@email.unc.edu)
Couch Biology Library, Zoology Section
(919) 962-2264