The Science Library provides Interlibrary Loan services for faculty and students in Chemistry and Pharmacy. Please see Debi McCain if you have questions.

Read our Interlibrary Loan policies.

Resources for Verifying Incomplete Citations and Finding Standard Numbers

Many times references cited at the end of journal articles and book chapters or in end notes do not contain all the necessary information to complete the request forms. For purposes of Interlibrary Loans, citations without the ARTICLE TITLE and AUTHOR and the ISSN or ISBN are considered incomplete.

ISSN stands for International Standard Serial Number.
ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number.

When this occurs you will need to verify the citation. Submitting complete citation information will speed up the receipt of your article or book. Most databases include all the necessary information for submitting Interlibrary Loan Requests, including ISSNs. There are sources available both in paper and online to help you find the information which is lacking.

Databases & Websites usefuld for completing citations

Medline Online Ovid and International Pharmaceutical Abstracts are good sources for ISSNs and complete citation information.  Choose the Complete Reference option to get the ISSN.

WorldCat is a good source for ISBNs and ISSNs for books and journals.

SciFinder Scholar  is another excellent source for complete citation information, including ISSNs.  The link will direct you to the page to download the software to your own computer, if you do not already have it.  If you are using a library computer, look for the icon on the desktop and follow the prompts.

The Serials Directory in EBSCOhost will provide ISSNs, official abbreviations for journal titles, indexing and publication information for a journal, as well as whether or not the journal is peer reviewed.

Ingenta  (formerly CarlUncover) is a good source for getting the article title or author information if you have journal title, volume number, and page numbers.  Use the Browse Publications option on the left side bar to view the table of contents of individual issues of the selected title.

Other subject specific databases will also have full citation information.

PubMed also provides ISSNs. After locating a citation in PubMed, choose "Medline" from the drop down box located right next to the "Display" button, and click the Display button. When the more complete citation opens up, look for the field code "IS". This is the ISSN. If you alreadyy have a citation, but lack parts of that citation, choose "Single Citation Matcher" from the menu on the left sidebar, enter whatever citation data you have, and click the Search button. Click on the appropriate citation if more than one is found. Then choose the Medline display of that citation and look for the ISSN.

PubMed Journals will give the full titles for journals indexed in Medline.

Amazon.com is a good source for ISBNs (for books).

List of Core Journals Covered in CAplus  [Chemical Abstracts Service] us another source for obtaining full journal titles from the abbreviations.

Paper Sources

These are available in the Science Library and are useful for finding ISSNs and for getting full journal titles:

Chemical Abstracts Service Source Index (CASSI) is a paper source for finding ISSNs and deciphering the full title from the journal abbreviations often used. The most current edition is located in the library office older copies are in the stacks, call number Z 5523 .A523.

National Library of Medicine List of Journals Indexed in Index Medicus is a paper source for finding ISSNs and getting full title information from the abbreviated form and is located at the Circulation Desk.