Libraries: Writing 1 & 2: Databases

What is a database?

A library database is a an electronic collection of published works. Library databases have been curated to help you research different topics. Most databases will have full text and abstracting/indexing for academic journals, magazines, newspapers, and other resources.

Full text means that the database will provide digital access to a copy of the articles in the journal.

Abstracting and indexing means that the database provides basic information about articles in a journal. This information usually includes: title, author, publisher, publication date, topic, and an abstract.

An abstract is a summary of the article. It is a very helpful tool for determining if the article you found in the database is right for you.

Helpful Databases

Academic Search Complete
Scholarly, multidisciplinary database containing more than 6,100 full-text journals, and indexing/abstracts for more than 10,100 journals.
Google Scholar
Google Scholar enables you to search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research.
New York Times Digital Edition
Alfred University faculty, staff, and students have access to the digital edition of the New York Times through a service called "Academic Pass." For registration information, see: http://libguides.alfred.edu/nyt
Opposing Viewpoints
Provides information on social issues, including viewpoint articles, topic overviews, statistics, primary documents, links to websites, and full-text magazine and newspaper articles.
Points of View Reference Center
Provides overviews of topics, including arguments on multiple sides of an issue. In addition to original essays, includes articles from leading political magazines, newspapers, radio/TV transcripts, primary source documents and reference books.
ProQuest Central
A multidisciplinary database of over 11,000 titles, with over 8,000 titles in full-text. Subjects covered include business and economics, health and medical, news and world affairs, technology, social sciences and more.

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Literary Resources Resources

MLA International Bibliography A database for the study of language, literature, linguistics, rhetoric and composition, folklore, and film, covering scholarly publications from the early 20th century to the present. International in scope. Includes citations to journal articles, books, articles in books, series, translations, scholarly editions, websites, and dissertations. Also includes the MLA Directory of Periodicals and the MLA Thesaurus, a searchable collection of thousands of subject terms, and personal names used in indexing the bibliography.
Literature Resource Center Includes biographical coverage of more than 115,000 writers and a wealth of critical material on the works of literary figures from all time periods writing in such genres as fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, history, and journalism.
Project MUSE Provides full-text articles from over 300 high-quality, peer-reviewed journals in the humanities, arts, and social sciences. Most journals are available beginning between 1990 and 2000 to the present.
JSTOR Contains almost 1,000 full-text journals spanning multiple disciplines. Some journals go to back to the mid-1800's. There is a gap, typically from 1 to 5 years, between the most recently published journal issues and the issues available in JSTOR.
Gale Literary Sources Find full text of literary works, journal articles, literature criticism and analysis, reviews, author biographies, and work overviews.
Literary Reference Center A collection of author biographies, plot summaries and work overviews, full-text essays from leading publishers, literary reference books and monographs, cover-to-cover full text for literary magazines and journals, book reviews from the most prestigious publications, poems from hundreds of sources, short stories, classic texts, and author interviews.