Forensic Science
Information Sources
This site was created to provide a collection of freely available, open access forensic science information sources in one place, as well as access to education modules to help with your literature search.
Click on the title of each information source type to get to a longer list of sources.
Resources will continue to be added to the site.
Feedback can be sent to FSwebsitefeedback@gmail.com
This tutorial, Methods for Locating Forensic Literature, contains education modules which will help you become more effective and efficient at searching for forensic literature.
The databases here were selected because they are open access and index literature related to the forensic sciences. Some of these databases may be freely available to search, but access to the actual full-text articles are subject to the restrictions of individual journals.
PubMed - PubMed is a health sciences database created and maintained by the National Library of Medicine
DRAGNET - Created by librarians at New York Law School, DRAGNET is a custom Google search of several freely available legal sites
National Criminal Justice Reference Service Virtual Library - "more than 225,000 collection records and over 80,000 online resources, including all known Office of Justice Programs works"
Image by jacqueline macou from Pixabay
The journals listed here are open access (OA) journals, or may have some content that is open access. The journals with limited OA are indicated with an asterisk (*).
Journal of Forensic Science Education - first issue is forthcoming, accepting manuscripts now
Journal of Forensic Sciences* - Mostly paywall content, though there are some open access articles. It's difficult to limit to open access only, but search results will indicate which articles are open access.
These textbooks are freely available for you to use as reference or in a classroom.
Open Textbook Library: Law - compilation of open access textbooks from the Open Textbook Library related to law; there are several titles related to criminal justice specifically
See more open access textbooks...
While most government information is freely available, these were selected for their relevance to the forensic sciences.
Bureau of Justice Statistics - "the United States' primary source for criminal justice statistics"
National Criminal Justice Reference Service Virtual Library - "more than 225,000 collection records and over 80,000 online resources, including all known Office of Justice Programs works"