If you are looking for articles on a topic, you will have to use a tool called an index. Indexes allow you to search the contents of journals, magazines, and newspapers and identify specific articles. They will provide bibliographic information (citations) that describe who wrote an article, what it was about, and where and when it was published. After you have a citation, you can then determine if the Library has the newspaper, magazine or journal online or in print at the Library.
The Library subscribes to hundreds of online indexes (databases) that you can use to identify articles. These databases provide access to information that is not available by searching Google or other search engines. Some of these databases are interdisciplinary, indexing a wide variety of publications in all fields. But the majority of our databases are more specific, either focusing on a particular subject area (such as history, chemistry, etc.), type of publication (such as newspapers, academic journals, etc.), or time period (for example, only 19th century materials).
Below are four ways you can identify databases for your research. Strategies for Selecting the Best Resource for Your Topic.
The majority of Library databases generally work in the same way, although their search interfaces may differ. There will be a basic keyword search, which will look for your search terms in an article citation, or if the database is full-text (like JSTOR), it may look for your search terms throughout the entire document. Most databases also provide an advanced search, which will allow you to focus your search to specific fields.
While some of our article databases (such as JSTOR), may provide the full-text of an article, many of our subject specific resources only provide an article citation and abstract. In order to obtain the article, you will need to determine if the Library has the online or print version of the journal, newspaper, or magazine which the article was published in.