Madigan Library: Databases

Library databases can contain:

• scholarly, peer-reviewed articles
• books and eBooks
• case studies
• periodicals like newspapers, trade journals, and magazines
• analyses of companies and businesses
• codes and standards
• and more!

Another important fact is that you have access to these resources for free.  The library pays for these resources, so that you can access the information you need.  Information comes in various formats--images, full text articles, eBooks, maps, and building plans.  You can find many resources to fit your projects. If you need help locating resources, please ask a librarian.

Most (if not all) of you have used Google to search for information. Google retrieves thousands of websites in a few seconds--how can that be a bad thing? While Google appears to bring millions of websites to your fingertips in a few seconds, for college level research, library databases are the resources to use.  Some of the benefits of library databases are:

• The articles in databases are free for you to use--the library pays for the resources.
• The certain articles in databases are peer reviewed by panels of experts in the field so the information is accurate and detailed.
• Databases have numerous limiters that allow users to narrow down their search terms to only retrieve useful results.
• Full text versions of articles are available, either in the database or through interlibrary loan.
• If you find an article on a topic you need, databases provide citations to other articles on similar topics so you can find more resources.

Before you begin searching, here are some steps you can take to specify your search.  These search strategies will be almost completely standard across different databases, and once you learn them here you can apply them to many other databases.  

• Quotation Marks: If you put quotation marks around your search terms, only articles or books with those specific terms in that specific order will be retrieved for you. Example: if you wanted to search for Iron Man, you would simply place quotation marks around "Iron Man" and hit search. If you had not placed quotation marks around Iron Man you would also have articles about iron and articles about man and Iron Man, which would not be as helpful to you.  
• AND, OR, or NOT: using and, or, or not between your search terms can help you specify your search.  If you want articles or books on apples and oranges, search for apples and oranges. That search will retrieve resources that contain both words: apples and oranges.   If you need resources that can be on either apples or oranges then your search terms would be apples or oranges. If you want resources that are only about apples not oranges, search apples not oranges, and only resources with apples will appear.  
• Asterisk: if you are researching a particular topic like "teaching," you can place an asterisk in your search term that will modify your search. Your search term would be teach* and because you placed an asterisk at the end of teach, the search will find articles that have the word teach, teaching, teacher. Placing an asterisk after the search term will retrieve the different forms of the word from the stem of the word teach.

These are the most common search strategies. While they are not complicated, they are extremely helpful in specifying your search terms to find better articles more quickly. 

Depending on the database you use to find resources, you can access the library's resources in a variety of formats.  Not every article will be available in all formats.  

If we likely have access to a resource you will see these formats listed:

• Full text or HTML Full Text - this format includes the full text of the article and will contain limited graphics. This is the best choice for fast printing if images are not needed.

• Full Text - PDF or PDF Full Text - this is an exact copy of an article as it appeared in print. It will include any graphics, charts, and pictures as they were in the original article. This is great if you need the images and graphics, want to view the article as it originally appeared, or need to download a copy of the PDF version.

• Check for Full Text - these contain the citations and a short abstract or summary of the articles, but the full text is not available in the database you are in. The links allow you to see if that article is available full text in another library database.

And if we do not have access to the article:

• Request this item through Interlibrary Loan - this means that we do not own a copy of this article but we can reach out to other libraries and receive a digital version of the resource. This service is free of charge to students, and receiving articles through interlibrary loan can take as few as two days or up to two weeks.  

You may generally print, email or save copies of articles or citations.