Finding Articles Using Multidisciplinary Databases
The University Libraries provides some great interdisciplinary databases for you when just beginning to look for articles for your research.
Interdisciplinary databases are just what they sound like, they cover many different topics. For example, if you were working on the topic of feminism is popular culture, when searching an interdisciplinary database, you might get results that were psychology focuses, business focused, or media. the search might provide you with lots of results and some may offer a different perspective on a topic that you had not thought of previously.
Some examples of Interdisciplinary Databases that the University Libraries offers are listed below.
The Videos and Tutorials Tab includes videos that walk you through searching several multidisciplinary databases.
- Academic Search Complete (1975-present) This link opens in a new windowCovers topics in most areas of academic study. Full-text provided for over 10,000 publications, with over 7,850 peer-reviewed. Abstracts and indexing available for over 13,780 journals in the collection.
- Project MUSE Premium collection This link opens in a new windowA comprehensive collection of peer reviewed, interdisciplinary journals from leading university presses, not-for-profit publishers and prestigious scholarly societies.
Journals can be searched individually, in groups, or all together. - Social Science Database This link opens in a new window(1994-) Covers over 1,000 titles on a variety of topics, 700 of which are available in full text. Provides information on hundreds of topics, including addiction studies, urban studies, family studies, and international relations.
Popular Subject-Specific Databases
Once you have searched some of the multidisciplinary databases, you may want to also search some subject-specific databases.
Subject-specific databases are just what they imply, they cover a very specific subject/focus within that database.
Some examples of subject-specific databases that the University Libraries offers are listed below.
- APA PsycInfo (formerly PsycInfo) This link opens in a new windowJournal articles, chapters, books, dissertations and reports on psychology and related fields. Indexed materials are international in scope selected from psychology and related journals published globally in over 25 languages. Updated weekly. Learn more about this database
- Business Source Complete (1965-) This link opens in a new windowFull text articles from scholarly business journals and other sources, including financial data, books, monographs, major reference works, conference proceedings, case studies, investment research reports, industry reports, market research reports, country reports, company profiles, SWOT analyses and more. Updated daily. Learn more about this database
- Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text (1975 - ) This link opens in a new windowIndex and abstracts for more than 270 publications (and selected coverage of more than 300), as well as full text for more than 70 journals and nearly 50 books. Subject coverage includes film & television theory, preservation & restoration, writing, production, cinematography, technical aspects, and reviews.
- Gender Studies Database (1972- ) This link opens in a new windowCombines Women’s Studies International and Men’s Studies databases with the coverage of sexual diversity issues. Covers the full spectrum of gender-engaged scholarship inside and outside academia. Includes more than 921,000 records.
- PubMed (1946 - ) This link opens in a new windowOver 3,500 journals published internationally, covering all areas of medicine. Includes the entire Medline database (1966+) PLUS PreMedline (recent articles that are not yet fully indexed for Medline) and links to publisher full-text web sites and other databases. Learn more about this database
- SocINDEX with Full Text This link opens in a new windowScholarly journals, plus extensive indexing for books/monographs, conference papers, and other non-periodical content sources. Provides comprehensive coverage of sociology, encompassing all sub-disciplines and closely related areas of study. Access provided by the Brown School Library.
Google Scholar
Google Scholar can also be a great place to find scholarly articles that are available through the Libraries databases . Some articles may not be available freely through Google Scholar or via the Libraries databases. If that is the case, you can order the article through Interlibrary Loan.
- Google Scholar This link opens in a new windowUse Google Scholar to find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web. While Google Scholar itself is free on the web, many of the citations it references are not. Accessing Google Scholar via the proxied link will enable Get It! and Web of Science Links from within Google Scholar citations. Learn more about proxying Google Scholar Having trouble accessing Google Scholar from off-campus? Use this research guide to access Google Scholar.
How do I Find out if the University Libraries has a Specific Article?
Another way to find articles for use in your research paper is by reviewing the bibliographies of articles/books that you have already read. This is a great way to find additional articles that might be relevant to your research. If you have information about an article and you want to see if the libraries has access to this article, you can use Citation Linker.
Citation Linker is a tool where you enter as much of the article as you have and the tool will determine if the libraries has access to the article. This form requires at least one of the following: Journal Title, ISSN, or DOI.
If you have the DOI number, using that to search will provide you with a clear result. A digital object identifier (DOI) is a unique alphanumeric string that provides a persistent link to its location on the internet. The publisher assigns a DOI when an article is published.