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Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences

Your guide to Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences research at UCLA: Find articles, books, datasets, and more.

Additional Resources

Dissertations are book-length documents that are the culminating requirement of a PhD degree. They are usually narrow in scope but very in-depth treatments of a topic. Dissertations often contain long bibliographies on the topic because submitters are required to do a comprehensive literature search.

Finding UCLA Dissertations for Graduates of Specific Departments by Year

For UCLA dissertations, search the UC Library Search.

Full-text UC dissertations since 1996 are available from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. 

As of March 13, 2012, UCLA's Graduate Division only accepts electronic filing of theses and dissertations. Theses and dissertations filed after this date will only be accessible electronically. They can be found by searching the UC Library Search, ProQuest Digital Dissertations and Theses, or eScholarship. Authors may embargo theses or dissertations for up to two years, so the full text of recent theses and dissertations may not be available.

Non-UCLA users can obtain UCLA dissertations through ProQuest UMI. The UCLA Library does not provide interlibrary loan service to individuals unaffiliated with UCLA. However, dissertations can be lent to institutions; see information for borrowing institutions.

Dissertation Databases

A Patent is an official document, issued by a government patent agency, granting property rights to the inventor or to the assignee (the latter is the owner of the patent). Patent searches are important for scientists and engineers for identifying patent applications and issued patents in areas of interest, learning about a new field of technology, for market information, and for tracking IP of competitors.

Patent Searching Resources

Patent Guides

Patent Depository Libraries

What are Standards?

Standards and Specifications are described as documents that describe the rules and conditions for how materials and products should be manufactured, defined, measured, tested, and applied.  They are used to establish baselines or a minimum level of performance and quality control to ensure that optimal conditions and procedures for the purpose of creating compatibility with products and services from different periods and a range of sources.  Specifications have a more limited range of application than standards and generally establish requirements for materials, products, or services. Standards and specifications may be issued by voluntary technical or trade associations, professional societies, national standards bodies, government agencies, or by international organizations. It is critical to establish the source.

Standards and specifications are of greatest utility to engineers, scientists and those working with new innovations.

Types of Standards:

  • Category, type, dimension, structure, equipment, quality, grade, component, performance, durability, or safety 
  • Methods of manufacturing, methods of designing, methods of drawing, methods of using, or methods of operation of safety condition of production
  • Methods of testing, analyzing, appraising, verifying, or measuring 
  • Terms, abbreviations, symbols, marks, preferred numbers, or units 
  • Design, methods of execution, or safety conditions

What are some points to remember when using standards?

  • Some standards are government-mandated, and others are voluntary.  There may be various penalties associated with not adhering to the standard. 
  • Standards are updated frequently to keep pace with changing technology -- check to see if the standard you are using is the latest version. 
  • Older, superceded versions of standards may be useful in many cases, such as legal disputes concerning the performance of a product that was manufactured when the older standard was in force.  The Engineering Library DOES NOT maintain historical or superceded standards.

To locate a standard you should (ideally) have at least three of the following:

  • The name of the publishing organization
  • The standard number
  • The title
  • The subject

Industry Standards Held at UCLA

To find individual standards, please search in the UC Library Search.

If you would like to request the library purchase a standard, please email us with the details.

Searching for Standards beyond SEL

The links below will help you identify standards available for purchase.

About Technical Reports


General Description of Technical Reports

Technical reports are documents that generally contain results of research and development supported by government grants or contracts. They can also come from private and corporate sponsored research. Although they are not usually formally refereed, they are an important form of scientific and technical information and communication.They are published by noncommercial publishers and are usually part of a numbered series.

For a detailed description of technical report literature see Subramanyam, Krishna. Scientific and Technical Information Resources.
 

How to Identify a Technical Report

Several characteristics of most reports will help track down the location of a report. These include: personal author(s), corporate author(s), issuing agency, title, publication date, contract or grant number, report number(s), order or accession number, number of pages, releasing agency, and distribution limitations, if any. The report number is the most important identification feature of a report. Report numbers usually consist of alphanumeric characters that designate some or all of the following: originating or contracting agency, series, accession number, subject classifications, form, date, and security classification. Reports often are assigned more than one report number. e.g., ADA-88-1098: AD=Dept of Def; A=Unclassified,Unlimited; 88=1988; 1098=the 1098 th in a series.

Technical Reports Databases

Note that some of these databases are entirely full text, others only index or abstract technical reports, and some are mix of full text and abstracts. 

Start With These Databases

 

Other Databases

Technical Reports held at UCLA (Print and Microfiche)

To find additional technical reports, please search in UC Library Search by series title or individual report title or a combination of both.

A collection of print and online safety reference books, websites, and MSDS sources.

Safety/MSDS Sources

UC Safety

Selected vendor catalogs that can be used to order electronics, parts, chemicals, materials, supplies, etc.