To decide what to use, think about the following:
To decide
what to use, think about the following:
What kind of information do I need, how much, and in what format?
If you are looking for a little bit of information about a topic, or a discrete fact (such as a list of the components of gasoline, or whether a particular bacterium is Gram positive or Gram negative), then an encyclopedia, handbook or dictionary might do the trick, rather than a database. Don't spend hours looking for an article that mentions the boiling point of a substance when we have handbooks that will show you the information in a moment! We have a number of them online, and many more on the shelves or in the Reference collection.
If you need magazines or newspapers, ProQuest Direct, Ebscohost Academic Search Premier and Lexis Nexis Academic include many of them.
Many people start out by using the interdisciplinary databases in the "Top Ten" list, such as ProQuest Direct or Ebscohost Academic Search Premier. If you must have full text to print or download, work from the Full Text list.
Select a database by choosing your subject from the list of databases under Electronic Resources and Databases. When you select a subject, the software will generate a list of subject-related databases. For example, clicking on Medicine generates a list including Medline, InfoTrac, Cinahl, and others. Remember- some topics will show up in more than one database. For instance, articles about child abuse will show up in PsycInfo, Sociological Abstracts, Social Services Abstracts, and CINAHL, as well as in ProQuest Direct, and even in ERIC.
If you are trying to write a research paper or do a review of the literature, the subject-specific databases will be important to you. Many of the databases will allow you to limit your search to "peer reviewed" or "scholarly" articles. Most of the time, these will be of better quality and more in-depth than magazine or newspaper articles.
If you need to have electronic text (esp. distance education students or if you are working from your home), you may focus on the so-called full-text databases, or in many of our databases, limit your search to citations that have the full text of the article attached.
Some disciplines, such as literature, will allow/require the use of older sources, which will commonly be on the shelves. Some disciplines, such as biology, may require the most up-to-date information, or restrict the sources that you may use to those published within the last several years.
When using any database provided by the Libraries, the user is responsible for observing the copyright laws of the United States (Title 17, United States Code). Students, faculty and staff should understand the fair use guidelines that protect scholarship and research.
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