Archive for April, 2011

It’s easy to identify the common cold: scratchy throat, runny or stuffy nose, sneezing, slight aches and pains, and a cough.  It’s not as easy sometimes to navigate through the library’s list of databases to find one that fits your needs.  Here are 2 great go-to databases where you can find the resources that you need for practically any class assignment.  They are easy to use, multidisciplinary, and contain not only scholarly articles but also newspaper and magazines articles, book reviews, and more!


Academic Search Premier – EBSCO
The world’s largest scholarly, multidisciplinary full text database.  Find journal, newspaper, and magazine articles, book chapters, primary sources, and educational reports.  Document types include case studies, directories, poems, literary criticism, interviews, etc.  This scholarly collection offers information in nearly every area of academic study.
Pros and Cons:
Contains a lot of full text articles (nearly 4,500 journals, including more than 3,600 peer-reviewed titles).  When you’re in a hurry, this is especially helpful.
Multi-disciplinary means you’ll be able to find information on practically any topic.  This makes it a great place to start researching for any class.
It’s easy to search multiple EBSCO databases at once by clicking on “Choose Databases” (found above the search boxes).  This will help to cut down searching time because many databases can be searched at once.
Not everything written about a particular topic will be found in Academic Search Premier.  To do an exhaustive search, it is best to start here and then search in a subject specific database to find other articles.
Although there are a lot of full text articles, not everything will be available in full text; you may only get an abstract of an article.  If that is the case, click on the “Click here for full text” link (also known as the 360 link) – this will search all of our databases to see if the article is available in full text.


ProQuest (all modules) – ProQuest
A multidisciplinary database with a large number of full text materials including conferences, correspondence, and etc. from journals, newspapers, and books.  Also includes a large offering of dissertations, theses, and newspapers.  (Click here for info on searching ProQuest).
Pros and Cons:
The most extensive selection of dissertations and theses spanning from 1861 to the present day.  Full text is available for most dissertations added since 1997.
Look through full text issues of the L.A. Times and the New York Times.  This is the database to find newspaper articles.
Multi-disciplinary means you’ll be able to find information practically any topic.  This makes it a great place to start researching for any class.
Not everything written about a particular topic will be found in the ProQuest databases.  To do a more extensive, try a subject specific database.
Although there are a lot of full text articles, not everything will be available in full text.  If you are only given an abstract, click on the “Click here for full text” link (also known as 360 link) – this will search all of our databases to see if the article is available in full text.
The new interface is nice for finding resources but (as of right now) there are issues with the database timing out (even when it really shouldn’t), wasting time and effort.

Summary:
Academic Search Premier (by EBSCO) and ProQuest (by ProQuest) are great places to go to begin your research, but they are not always the best places to end.  The best place to end is with a subject specific database where you’ll find a more comprehensive list of articles for a particular topic/subject.  Not sure which subject specific database to use?  The librarians at Pearson Library created research guides that can help you with that: libguides.callutheran.edu.

Need more help?  Contact the librarian for that subject: www.callutheran.edu/iss/research/information_specialist.php.  We are always happy to meet with you to help you find what you need!


Like the Pearson Library on Facebook.

No comments