Library Databases

Online library databases have made research easier as a new student.

I do a lot of my assignments in libraries for meetings and I usually check if UW has access to an article before trying to get it elsewhere.

Library databases provide the ability to focus searches by subject area, sort results according to date and relevance, and will never charge you to access the full-text of an article.

There are two major types of databases to consider when conducting research:

• Multidisciplinary databases: These databases typically cover scholarly articles published across a wide variety of disciplines. They provide excellent breadth, but may lack depth for a given subject.
• Subject-specific databases: Databases of this type tend to limit their coverage to journals that are relevant to a single subject or cluster of subjects, e.g. physics or environmental studies. They provide excellent depth and often offer tools for focusing your search, but may not return as many results as a multidisciplinary database.

Disciplinary and subject-specific databases can be identified by looking at the Research Guide associated with your area of study.

Multidisciplinary Databases

Depending on your field of study, you may find that you prefer to start your research with a multidisciplinary database and later focus your search within a subject-specific database. Today you will learn more about the following databases:

• Web of Science
• Academic Search Complete
• JSTOR

You can find access to these databases, and many more, through the UW Libraries Articles & Research Databases list.

Web of Science

Web of Science is a multidisciplinary database that provides access to thousands of journals, including Open Access journals, and conference proceedings in the sciences, social sciences, technology, medicine, and arts & humanities. This database is popular with researchers in STEM fields, although its coverage extends to other disciplines as well.

Web of Science includes:

• An extensive citation network– view number of times cited, cited references & related records.
• The ability to easily export citations to Mendeley, EndNote, and Zotero.
• The ability to create a free account to save searches and receive alerts.
• Links directly to full-text articles, when available.

You can find Web of Science in our Articles & Research Databases list and from the front page of the Health Sciences Library website.

Academic Search Complete

Academic Search Complete is a multidisciplinary database hosted by EBSCO that offers an enormous collection of full-text journals, including many sources that are not covered by Web of Science. It is especially popular with researchers in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, but provides useful coverage for all major disciplines, including STEM fields.

JSTOR

JSTOR is a multidisciplinary database that offers a somewhat smaller selection of academic journals than some databases, but specializes in full-text coverage as well as extensive access to journal back issues.  In addition to articles, JSTOR also covers scholarly books and primary source documents. Because it lacks coverage to the most recent 3-5 years of most journals, it is most popular with researchers in the arts, humanities, and social sciences.

 

What about Google Scholar?

Many graduate students are told by faculty that they need to be familiar with both library databases and Google Scholar — but are not told the differences and similarities between these two resource types.

Google Scholar is a search tool that identifies scholarly research materials from journal publishers, university repositories, and other websites that are considered scholarly. These materials include peer-review articles, dissertations and theses, books, preprints, abstracts, and technical reports from a variety of disciplines.

Google Scholar provides some basic and advanced search options, like a library database. However, it doesn’t have the ability to focus searches by subject area, nor is it designed for conducting a comprehensive search of scholarly literature.

In some cases, Google Scholar is a great option for finding scholarly materials because it’s a familiar search engine that provides easily accessible information on citation counts. In other cases, it’s a less precise tool for research and runs the risk of missing essential content because of content paywalls, the relevance-ranking algorithm, or information overload.

Importantly, it is possible to configure Google Scholar so that it displays access information for full-text material already paid for by UW Libraries. To view subscription-based content through Google Scholar, you will need to add University of Washington Libraries to your Google settings.

Learn how to connect Google Scholar with UW Libraries by visiting our Libraries Research FAQ.