Wile E. Coyote gave many of us inadvertent lessons in science in his endless quest to dine on delicious roadrunner. The hazards of poorly understood physics (what goes up must come down), where you should stand during an experiment, and humorous cautions on not using proper safety precautions were all hallmarks of his schemes. Professors even occasionally use his misadventures in class, to illustrate their points.

But when it comes to your research, you probably want something a little more… rigorous (and less prone to catastrophic failure and personal injury). Fortunately, the worst you risk in the library is an occasional paper cut. We have lots of high-quality databases for science (listed here) that can supply you with the current and accurate information you need. But one of the best of these is the Wiley Online Library (formerly called Wiley Interscience).

If you’re into science, you’ve probably used Wiley. Recently, they have expanded their content to include humanities and social sciences, but its great strength is in the hard sciences and mathematics. Like most databases, it is constantly growing – in addition to new content published each month, several supplemental journals published by Wiley-Blackwell were just consolidated into it. All told, there are more than five million articles available. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg – Wiley also offers thousands of ebooks and more science-specific material like laboratory protocols to make sure your research is cutting edge.

Give this great database a try – you’ll become ‘Wiley’ in the best sense! And if you need any help, ask us at iueref@iue.edu. It will work out better for you than contacting the Acme Corporation!