Professor & Reference/Instruction Librarian
Diane Duesterhoeft
she/her
Contact:
Louis J. Blume Library, Room 201
St. Mary's University
One Camino Santa Maria
San Antonio, TX 78228-8608
USA
dduesterhoeft@stmarytx.edu
St. Mary's University
One Camino Santa Maria
San Antonio, TX 78228-8608
USA
dduesterhoeft@stmarytx.edu
210-436-3346
Discover: Find articles, books, and more...
Searching for Articles: Subscription Databases
If you're looking for articles about a topic, begin with library subscription databases. Here are recommended databases:
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowJSTOR journals, books, images, and primary sources are integrated into a single, robust platform that uses the latest digital technologies and best practices. JSTOR provides access to over 12 million journal articles, books, images, and primary sources in 75 disciplines.
Full runs of journals from more than 2,800 top scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. More than 100,000 ebooks from 250+ renowned scholarly publishers, integrated with journals and primary sources on JSTOR. This source also includes open-access articles! - Gale Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new windowGale Literature Resource Center makes it easy to search biographical, bibliographical, and contextual information on authors from around the world and throughout different time periods. This database provides critical analysis, primary sources, and detailed work overviews, along with in-depth biographical, bibliographical, and contextual information. There are more than 165,000 complete entries from popular literature series, including two award-winning series, Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors and Gale Literature: Dictionary of Literary Biography.
- MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new windowProduced by the Modern Language Association (MLA), the bibliography directs researchers to more than 3 million citations from journal articles, books, book chapters, dissertations, scholarly websites, editions, and translations published from the late 19th century to the present.
MLA International Bibliography covers a broad range of humanities subjects, including world languages and literature, linguistics, dramatic arts, film, folklore, rhetoric and writing studies, the teaching of language, and the history of publishing. Its expansive scope also makes it an excellent resource for research in history, philosophy, communications, and cross-disciplinary subjects such as gender studies and area studies.
Content Includes:
3,100,000 records
25,000 indexed journals and book series
2,000 book publishers - Project Muse This link opens in a new windowProject MUSE offers open access (OA) books, journals, and digital humanities work from several distinguished university presses, scholarly societies, and independent not-for-profit academic publishers. Through our open-access hosting programs, we are able to offer publishers a platform for their OA content which ensures visibility, discoverability, and wide dissemination. These materials are freely available to libraries and users around the world.
For more than 25 years, Project MUSE has been the trusted and reliable source of complete, full-text versions of scholarly journals from many of the world's leading universities and scholarly societies. Currently, Project MUSE has over 800 journals from 125 publishers and offers over 80,000 books from more than 140 presses. MUSE also offers over 4000 open access books on the platform.
NOTE: Limit to "only content I have access to" to find free full-text.
Database Search Tips
- Consider what type of information you need and where you might find it.
- Break your topic into key concepts and identify terms for each concept. Start with fewer words. Less yields more.
- Don't be too narrow in your search, especially initially.
- While it is possible to find sources on international or local topics, the strength of many of our academic databases is coverage of US national topics.
- Use Boolean connectors like AND, OR, and NOT to connect keywords. Many databases search the words as a phrase otherwise.
- In general, avoid using prepositions like "in," "of," and "on."
- Truncation characters such as an * (asterisk) can expand your search by retrieving various forms of a word, e.g., comput* retrieves computer, computers, computing, computation, etc.
- Look at the subject terms or descriptors that are used for articles that appear relevant. Try other searches using those terms.
- In the sciences and social sciences, when starting a journal article search on a topic, consider adding systematic review or meta-analysis, or literature review in your search.
- Consult a librarian or your faculty member for additional related terms.
- Think about which individuals or groups of people or organizations are associated with your topic. These might be additional terms to search.
Evaluate Article Relevance & Quality
- Look at subject terms applied to relevant articles. Did you find additional articles by searching these subject headings?
- Which terms or search strategies yielded the best results?
- Look at the abstract. Are there additional keyword terms you might search?
- How long is the article?
- In which journal or periodical was this article published? What is the journal's or magazine's reputation? How do you know?
- When was the article published? What time period does the research or article cover?
- Who is the author of the article? What are the author's credentials? What qualifies the author as an expert?
- What sources are cited in this article?
- How will this source advance the research project?
- See Evaluate Information for more criteria.
Journals List Search
Looking for a specific journal, magazine, or newspaper?
Use Journals List to search for the title of a journal, magazines, or newspaper and determine if the library offers online access or print access to that publication.
- Journals List VideoWatch this short video if you want to see an example search with remote access.