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How to find articles from newspapers, magazines, and scholarly journals in library databases. It describes the difference between general and specialized databases and how to access them. The document also explains the benefits of electronic format and how it is more convenient for students. It is a useful guide for students who are new to using library databases.
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Research Essentials Week Five pt. 2 Notes
In the past (20 years or so ago), libraries collected all of these sources in paper format -
In short, a database is a bag with things in it, that you can search through. In the library context, the “things” in the database “bag” are usually ● Articles from newspapers ● Articles from magazines ● Articles from scholarly journals Most academic libraries have both general and specialized periodical databases. Here's the difference, in a nutshell:
General databases are usually very large collections of newspaper, magazine, and scholarly journal articles, on all different topics! Our two large general databases are Academic Search Complete and ProQuest. Each of these contain massive amounts of articles, going all the way back to the 1990's, and current up to many of today's newspapers from around the country and around the world. So as you can imagine, if you are researching something that's a current event, you'll likely want to search the library's general databases for newspaper and magazine articles!
Specialized databases are usually smaller collections, and only contain articles for specialized topics. For example, we have a specialized database just for nursing that contains only articles from nursing magazines and scholarly journals. We have a
specialized database for psychology that contains only articles from psychology-related scholarly journals. And so on.