The library has a wide variety of books, journals, and databases to suit your needs.

Welcome to our guide on resources for Biomedical Engineering. As the Learning and Research Librarian for Engineering, I am here to support you in your learning and assignments.

Ruth Collingwood - Learning & Research Librarian for Engineering

LibrarySearch is CCCU’s library discovery tool and a key resource for you. It allows you to easily search across library resources, including books, e-books and journal articles. Many of the resources available via Library Search are not freely available on the web, and rather than worrying about paywalls, it automatically limits your search to full-text. Remember to sign in to access all the resources.

Google Scholar is also an excellent resource. It can be used to search for scholarly information on the internet, including ebooks, journal articles and conference papers. It can also be linked to library holdings, showing you where CCCU has paid for access to a resource and allowing you to link through.

Searching LibrarySearch alongside Google Scholar for your assignment topics is a good place to start.

You can also access databases individually for more in-depth searching or for specific types of resources such as statistics, reports or documentaries (please see under Databases below for some recommendations)

You can use LibrarySearch to search for the books you need. Just type in a few words from the title plus the surname of the author(s) into the search box. If you get stuck – please ask!

We use the Dewey Decimal System to classify the books so it’s easier to find them. Each number refers to a different subject area. In Augustine House, the lowest numbers are on the first floor and the highest numbers are on the third floor.

You will find the majority of the biomedical engineering book collection on the second and third floors at Augustine House:

  • 510-519 Mathematics
  • 530 Physics
  • 610 Medicine and Health
  • 620-629 Engineering
  • 761 Medical equipment

Remember to check the different areas housing the 7-day loan (open shelves) and 4-week loans (moving shelves).

The library also has hundreds of e-books for engineering. To search for e-books in LibrarySearch, limit your results in the left-hand pane of the search screen to e-books and click on the link to CCCU e-book to download or read online.

If you prefer to read in printed hard copy, you can browse printed copies of journals on the second floor of Augustine House in the Silent Zone (west wing) – they are shelved in alphabetical order of the title of the journal. These are for use in the library only. However, most journals are also available online. Online journals relevant to biomedical engineering include:

  • Biocybernetics and Biomedical Engineering
  • Biomedical Engineering Online
  • Current Opinion in Biomedical Engineering
  • IEEE Pulse
  • IEEE Reviews in Biomedical Engineering
  • Journal of Rehabilitation and Assistive Technologies Engineering
  • Materials Today
  • Medical Engineering and Physics
  • Nature
  • New Scientist

Check which journals are available online by using LibrarySearch. Make sure you log in first! (You will need your university username and password).Try entering the title of a journal into the search box or using the “Find e-journals by title” link.

You can also browse e-journals by subject, using Browzine. This software allows you to read a journal like an e-book, so you can look through the whole journal rather than just individual articles. There is an app so you can use it easily on your phone or other mobile device.

Find individual journal articles to read online by doing a quick search in LibrarySearch. Try searching for a key word or phrase connected with your research topic, e.g. “medical devices” or “robotic exoskeleton”. See our quick guide for more information.

Open access journals

The Directory of Open Access Journals includes journals such as Current Directions in Biomedical EngineeringMDPI supports open scientific exchange, providing access to in the sciences. Open access journals are usually scholarly, but the difference is, the publishers of these journals believe in making their research freely accessible to anyone with an internet connection. This means that you (or your institution) don’t have to have a subscription to the journal to be able to read the articles they publish.

There are lots of databases that contain articles about biomedical engineering, and they are all available via LibrarySearch – just click on the “Find databases” link in the left-hand menu and you will see an alphabetical list. Browse the list until you find the one you want.

The most useful databases for your subject include:

Acland’s Video Atlas of Human Anatomy Video recordings of real dissected human cadaveric specimens. The specimens have not been embalmed and therefore retain the colour, texture and mobility of the living body. The recordings show real life movement and transcripts of the audio can be printed out.

BioMed Central Open access peer-reviewed journals covering subjects such as biomedicine, materials science, engineering, mathematics and physics.

BIOSIS Citation Index Life sciences and biomedical research covering pre-clinical and experimental research, methods and instrumentation, animal studies, and more.
Access content from journals, meetings, patents, and books from 1969 onwards.

BMJ Journals A wide range of medical journals covering a broad selection of medical specialties. The journals are peer reviewed and have international Editorial Boards to ensure global relevance.

British Standards Online (BSOL): Contains British standards and international and European standards that have been adopted as British standards.

Cochrane Library Cochrane Reviews represent the highest level of evidence on which to base clinical treatment decisions. Also provides other sources of reliable information: other systematic reviews abstracts, technology assessments, economic evaluations, and individual clinical trials. (Guide to Cochrane Library)

Embase (OVID) EMBASE is a major biomedical and pharmaceutical database indexing over 3,500 international journals in the following fields: drug research, pharmacology, pharmaceutics, toxicology, clinical and experimental human medicine, health policy and management, public health, occupational health, environmental health, drug dependence and abuse, psychiatry, forensic medicine, and biomedical engineering/instrumentation. (Guide to Embase)

Engineering Case Studies Online Contains a wide range of video and text material focusing on engineering failures and successes. At completion, the collection will contain 250 hours and 50,000 pages of quality documentaries, accident reports, experiments, visualizations, case studies, lectures and interviews from leading engineering institutions around the world.

Engineering Village: Search several engineering databases with multiple search options, with journals, standards, property search and materials, equations, conference proceedings, and more. (Guide to Engineering Village)

Espacenet – European Patent Office: Index to more than 120 million patent documents worldwide from 1836 onwards. Full-text access to British patents from 1859. Full-text access to patents from other countries includes US from 1836 and various starting dates for EPO, WIPO, France, Germany and Switzerland.

Europe PMC A repository, providing access to worldwide life sciences articles, books, patents and clinical guidelines. Europe PMC provides links to relevant records in databases such as Uniprot, European Nucleotide Archive (ENA), Protein Data Bank Europe (PDBE) and BioStudies.

IEL Online (IEEE Xplore) Full-text access to the entire IEEE and IET collection of journals, magazines, and conference proceedings, plus all active and historical IEEE standards.

Lens Patent Search Discovery and analytics tools on a comprehensive collection of patent literature with citation indexing.

MEDLINE A key source for biomedical literature. Contains bibliographic citations and author abstracts for 4,000+ journals.

New Scientist Provides access to the articles from this weekly international science magazine. Articles are grouped by broad field or topic, and you can browse by date or search for a specific subject. It also includes lists of jobs and careers advice information. [Access via LibrarySearch and then choose OpenAthens link on the New Scientist page].

PubMed Comprises more than 29 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.

ScienceDirect Searches across 2,500 peer-reviewed titles – or over 9.5 million articles. This is a good source for journal articles in engineering, covering biomedical engineering, medicine and dentistry, energy, and materials science.

Scopus The largest abstract and citation database containing both peer-reviewed research literature and quality web sources. With over 22,000 titles from more than 5,000 international publishers, Scopus offers researchers a quick, easy and comprehensive resource to support research, including in the fields of engineering, science and technology.

SpringerProtocols 1980-2012 A large database of reproducible laboratory protocols (over 40,000) in biomedicine and life sciences, enabling users to find the right protocol for a lab set-up.

Trip Medical Database A clinical search engine designed to allow users to quickly and easily find and use high-quality research evidence to support their practice and/or care.

Visible Body An interactive multimedia resource containing 3D anatomy and physiology models, animations, illustrations, quizzes and more. Premium content includes a Human Anatomy Atlas, Muscle, Skeleton, Heart & Circulatory and Physiology animations modules. (Guide to Visible Body)

Wiley Online Library Searches across a multi-disciplinary collection of journals covering physical sciences, biomedical engineering, physics, mathematics and medical science.

There are a lot of brilliant websites that may be relevant to your studies, but there are also many that are not, so it is essential to evaluate the material carefully to decide whether they are scholarly enough.

The following websites are a good starting point:

BioRxiv (pronounced “bio-archive”) is a free online archive and distribution service for unpublished preprints on the subject of biology. It is operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a not-for-profit research and educational institution. Be aware that papers have not yet been through a peer-review process.

Department of Health and Social Care use this site to find publications, consultation, policy, guidance and statistics.

HSE the website of the Health and Safety Executive. Find news and guidance on topics such as machine safety.

Intellectual Property Office this is official UK government body responsible for intellectual property rights. Find information on patents, designs, trade marks and copyright.

Medical Research Council Funds research into improving human health, from lab-based science to clinical trials, working closely with the NHS and the UK Health Departments.

PLOS an open access publisher with journals on Biology, Computational Biology and Medicine.

SCIRP Scientific Research Publishing: an open access publisher with journals including the Journal of Biomedical Science and Engineering

Box of Broadcasts: On-demand TV and radio service for education. Allows staff and students to record programmes and create clips from over 60 free-to-air channels, both TV and radio, and search an archive of over 2 million broadcasts. If you’ve seen or heard something on TV or radio that you think would be useful to your learning or teaching, there’s a good chance you can access it via B.o.B. Access within the UK only (Guide to B.o.B)

EU Screen Portal: Offers free access to thousands of archival audio-visual items from across Europe, bringing together clips that provide an insight into the social, cultural, political, and economic events that have shaped the 20th and 21st centuries.

Kanopy: Access to a large, curated catalogue of over 30,000 educational documentaries and classic films. A wide range of subject coverage (e.g. Arts and Humanities, Social Sciences, Education, Health and Sciences). Watch anytime, anywhere and on any device including via media streaming apps.

Ruth Collingwood
Library and Research Librarian