Research Guides: Research Basics: Using Library Databases: Selecting Databases

What topics are included in library databases?

Library databases cover a wide range of topics from various academic disciplines and career paths.

General Information Databases
- Resources on many different topics
Subject-Specific Databases
- Resources specific to an academic discipline or career path
- Resources in a particular format, like newspapers or electronic books

General Information databases are good places to start your research. Try one of the following:

Academic Search Complete
Designed for academic institutions, this database is a leading resource for scholarly research.It supports high-level research in the key areas of academic study by providing journals, periodicals, reports, booksand more.
JSTOR Archival Journals
JSTOR provides access to more than 12 million journal articles, books, images, and primary sources in 75 disciplines
ProQuest Central
Thousands of articles in all subject areas; many include full-text, graphics and images

Your instructor has assigned a research project. What databases will fit your research need?

Argumentative research paper? - Try a Current Issues database.

Opposing Viewpoints: Gale in Context
Information on social issues, including viewpoint articles, topic overviews, statistics, links to web sites, and full-text magazine and newspaper articles

Marketing plan? - Try a Business database.

Small Business Source
Covers all aspects of starting and operating a business. Includes information on accounting, finance, human resources, management, marketing, tax, and more. State-specific information included.

Career research? - Try a Career Information database.

Salem Press Careers
Includes career overviews and biographies of industry leaders that will be of interest to those with career aspirations in a wide variety of in-demand fields

Peer-reviewed scientific study? - Try a Science database.

ScienceDirect -- Health & Life Sciences
Over 1,000 full-text health and life science journals, plus many more with abstracts only. Most include articles from 1995 - present

International news source? - Try a Newspaper database.

Proquest International Newsstream
International Newsstream provides the most recent news content from outside of the U.S. and Canada with archives that stretch back decades. The comprehensive collection features newspapers, newswires, transcripts, and digital-only news sites in full-text format. Over 800 of the world's top news sources such as The Times (London), The Bangkok Post, El Norte, Financial Times, The Guardian, Jerusalem Post, South China Morning Post, The Daily Telegraph, Asian Wall Street Journal, and the BBC Monitoring series of publications are included in the collection.

Allied health poster presentation with illustrations? - Try a Health Sciences database.

SMART imagebase: Scientific & Medical ART
SMART is a collection of 20,000+ illustrations & animations depicting anatomy, physiology, surgery, diseases, conditions, trauma, embryology, histology and other health science topics. Educational use is allowed for PowerPoints, handouts, poster sessions and interactive Flash animations.
PowerPoint Tutorial

Analysis of a literary work? - Try a Literary Criticism database.

Literary Reference Source
Literary Reference Source is a rich full-text literary database covering all genres and time periods. It includes thousands of synopses, critical essays, book reviews, literary journals and author biographies, plus full-text classic novels, short stories and poems.