Library databases contain scholarly journal articles, magazine and newspaper articles, reports, and much more that probably won't be available freely on the Internet. That's because much of the materials needed to do proper research are behind paywalls. The library helps you by giving you access to these materials through databases.
Discovery - A discovery search is a kind of search that search multiple databases at once. This is great if you have a very developed search strategy, but just starting out it can be overwhelming when you return 1 million+ articles! Another downside to discover searches is that they do not search every database and often favor certain databases over others. Our discover search is called GALILEO Discover and is the default search on our homepage.
Multidisciplinary - Some databases cover many different discipline areas. These are great alternatives to discovery searching when you are first starting out. You will find articles from many different areas though, so be careful about what is appropriate for your topic and assignment. Examples include Academic Search Complete and Research Library.
Subject Specific - Most databases are subject-specific, which means they cover only one specific subject area or group of subject areas. This means that doing a search in these databases is narrowing your field down tremendously and you will only get results from the subject you are searching. Examples include America: History & Life.
Publisher Specific - Some databases have only content from a specific publisher and can be multidisciplinary or subject-specific. For example, the database Science Direct only has content from the publisher Elsevier.
Specialized - Some databases have specialized content and can be used to find specific kinds of information. For example, Westlaw has information about legal cases and news stories.
GALILEO searches across all of the Libraries' databases at once.
Enter a few keywords and/or "key phrases", or search by title or author > Search or hit Enter/Return
Multi-disciplinary database offering full-text coverage of information in mathematics, physical sciences, social sciences, humanities, and technology.
Provides electronic access to back issues (from the date of first publication) of selected, core journals, organized into the Arts and Sciences Collections I & II, the General Sciences Collection, the Ecology and Botany Collection, and the Business Collection.
Arts & Humanities Database includes both scholarly peer-reviewed journals and selected trade and consumer titles relevant to applied arts and cultural studies, and the subject strengths of the collection are:
Art, design, crafts and photography
Archaeology, anthropology and classical studies
Architecture, interior design and urban planning
History, philosophy, geography and religion
Modern languages and literature
Music, theatre, film and cultural studies
The contents reflect the full interdisciplinary of contemporary study in the arts and humanities, with the inclusion of selected titles from related fields that are also covered by these indexes, such as ethnic and area studies, politics, economics and women's studies.
History Reference Source is a full-text history reference database designed for secondary schools, public libraries, junior/community colleges, and undergraduate research. The database features reference books, encyclopedias, non-fiction books, and history periodicals as well as thousands of historical documents, biographies of historical figures, photos, maps, and over 80 hours of historical video.
In addition, think of the topic of your paper. If you are writing about education history, perhaps try an education database. If you are writing about a political topic, try a political science database. Anything can be the subject of historical analysis and so many different sources can be consulted.