Our library subscribes to many databases that provide citations, abstracts, and sometimes links to full-text articles. This page identifies useful databases to which the library subscribes.
JSTOR stands for Journal Storage. It is an electronic archive of older issues of some important academic journals. Some faculty members like to search it by topic because of the convenience of the full text.
I do not recommend searching JSTOR by subject unless you are looking for a very specific unusual word or phrase you can find no where else! Why:
1. Nothing in JSTOR is current. It is journal storage. There is a delay of at least three--and usually five--years between journal publication and inclusion in JSTOR.
2. It is a key word only search. There is no subject searching. If you search for your word or phrase in the title and the author used another word or phrase, the article will not appear.
3. Searches yield too many hits, many of them irrelevant. Do you really want to look through 600 or more articles for a few useful ones? Scholars can go through large searches and identify the few relevant articles relatively quickly because they are already very familiar with the subject. Students cannot.
Use a more specific database to identify articles. Use the Journal Locator to determine if we own the article: the Journal Locator includes the journals in JSTOR.
Using a licensed database rather than a regular search engine finds articles in respected journals rather than miscellaneous stuff on the Internet.
Our library subscribes to many databases that provide citations, abstracts, and sometimes links to full-text articles. For the history of the United States and Canada use America: History and Life. You may also wish to search SocIndex, which provides selected coverage of the social sciences, including history and sociology and includes some full-text articles. It also includes some citations to government documents, books, and chapters in books.
You may wish to limit your search in these databases to articles in peer-reviewed journals.
ALWAYS USE THE ADVANCED SEARCH OPTION. IF THE DATABASE SUPPLIES SUBJECT HEADINGS, USE THEM.
For newspaper coverage contemporary to events, use the New York Times Historical (1851-2008), which provides images of articles and the pages that surround them. Searching the New York Times Historical will also provide dates for events. This will provide useful for newspapers, such as the New Bedford Standard Times and the Fall River Herald, which are available only in microfilm and do not include indexes.
The archives of the Boston Globe may be searched through their homepage. Subscribers may search and retrieve articles at no additional cost; others may search without charge, but are subject to "reasonable" charges to retrieve the articles. Consider using the archives to search for articles, but reading them on microfilm.
Except for the New York Times Historical and SocIndex, these databases include little full text within the databases. But the articles may be available in electronic format or in paper. A link within the citation allows you to check availability.
If we don't have an article, you may request a copy through interlibrary loan. A copy of the article will be sent to your email address.
This is a library tutorial on understanding citations found in searches of online databases and bibliographies.
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Understanding Citations TutorialTutorial: Reading Citations in an Online Database |
