Activity: Library Databases

Library databases allow you to search for articles published in scholarly journals and magazines. There are two major types of library databases to consider when conducting article-based research:

• Multidisciplinary: These databases typically include scholarly articles published across a wide variety of disciplines, similar to Google Scholar. They are especially good for interdisciplinary research, where the topic spans more than one subject area (e.g. environmental psychology)
• Subject-specific: Databases of this type limit their coverage to journals that are relevant to a single subject or cluster of subjects, e.g. business or literature. They provide excellent depth in that area, but may not be as useful for interdisciplinary research. It’s usually good to start with a multidisciplinary database and then seek out a subject-specific one if you don’t find what you need.

Recommended starting points:

• Academic Search Complete is a multidisciplinary database that offers an enormous collection of full-text journals and some popular magazines and newspapers.
• Web of Science is a multidisciplinary database that provides access to thousands of journals in the sciences, social sciences, technology, medicine, and arts & humanities.  
• UW Libraries Search is both a multidisciplinary database and a library catalog. Find all items held by UW Libraries (books, journals, maps, media), scholarly and popular articles, primary sources, and more
• Check out the libraries’ Research Guides, created by UW subject librarians, for recommended databases in your discipline.

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

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