Research Guides: Mechanical and Industrial Engineering: Background Information

MIE Background Information

What is background information? How can it help you?

You may be familiar with popular sources of background information such as Wikipedia. This guide will help you learn about professional and scholarly sources of background information.

Theses source can help you:

Narrow a paper/research topic
Identify the social impact of your topic
Help you learn a little bit about a topic before get started
Fill in knowledge gaps
And more ...

Why use handbooks?

Handbooks are trusted and reliable sources of many kinds of information that practicing engineers need to have "on hand." Many have been around for generations and are now available online.

Handbooks provide information such as:

Material properties (elasticity, density, types of strength…) under various conditions
Introductory materials
Data/Tables/Figures
References
Definitions
Formulae

Finding relevant handbooks at NJIT Library

ASM Handbooks Online
Alternate Name(s): American Society for Metals Information
Provides convenient access to the world's largest collection of information and data on the composition, structure, properties, processing, performance, and evaluation of engineering materials.
AccessEngineering from McGraw-Hill
An engineering reference and teaching platform that delivers interdisciplinary engineering content integrated with analytical teaching and learning tools.
Knovel Handbooks - Chemistry & Chemical Engineering
Notice: this database is not being renewed, and the current subscription will end on 2/28/2026.

Full-text access is available to the chemistry and chemical engineering subset of Knovel Handbooks, offering searchable data sets, reference works, and tools in science and engineering. Features include data search by physical and thermal properties, interactive charts and graphs, an Excel add-in, and unit converters.
O'Reilly for Higher Education
Famously known for its computer science books, O'Reilly now offers an extensive online database from many publishers, including Packt, Pearson, and HarperCollins. This database is jam packed with books, videos, and other tutorial formats that cover every known field in computer science. Please note that from even on-campus you will be prompted to login to this resource.

Search for print and online handbooks in the NJIT Library Collection -- choose the Books tab for the Library Search and add the word "handbooks" to your search.

Example searches:

"material science" and handbooks

manufacturing and handbooks

Government research sources

Government agencies and departments can provide insights into current research topics and issues. They can provide a window into the types of projects that engineers work on in the federal and state government.

Here's a search tip to find government informaiton using Google -- use "site.gov" in your search. Example: rocket science site:.gov

NASA.gov

U.S. Department of Defense

Federal Aviation Administration

Mechanical Engineers -- learn about careers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Engineering at the National Science Foundation

National Institute of Standards and Technology