LibGuides: CAT 3: Finding Sources

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UC Library Search
UC Library Search allows you to search all of the University of California's library collections. It includes scholarly and peer-reviewed journals and articles, books and ebooks, course reserves, special formats (media, maps, newspapers, dissertations, etc.), government documents and datasets, and primary resources, archives, and special collections.

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Expand Your Search with Article Databases

Use a database when you are not finding what you are looking for in UC Library Search.

An multidisciplinary database will contain information about your topic from several different disciplines. This is useful when you are exploring a topic.
A subject-specific database will contain information about your topic from the viewpoint of a specific subject area. This is useful when you want to dig deeper into the literature.

The list below are suggested databases but feel free to visit the Library's A-Z Database page. Use the drop-down to filter by subject.

Library's A-Z Databases

Database Recommendations

Art and Architecture Source
1927-present, citations to journal articles on art, architecture, photography, and related disciplines.
Arts & Humanities Citation Index
1975-present. Provides author, keyword, and cited reference searching from more than 1100 leading arts and humanities journals. In many cases includes searchable abstracts plus links to e-journal images. Part of the Web of Science.
ARTstor
Library of over 2.5 million digital images and their corresponding metadata. Covers many time periods and cultures, and documents the fields of architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, design, anthropology, ethnographic and women's studies, as well as many other forms of visual culture
Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals
1934-present, with selective coverage back to 1741. Lists journal articles in architecture, and related fields such as archaeology, urban planning, historic preservation, interior design
International Index to the Performing Arts (Full-Text) (IIPA-FT)
An index to over 200 journals and magazines in the fields of dance, drama, film, theater, opera, puppetry, circus, and other forms of performance art.
Music Periodicals Database
This database provides indexing and abstracts for several hundred international music periodicals from over 20 countries, plus full text for more than 140 of the indexed journals. The majority of the records in the database are from the most recent ten years of publication. Some complete journal runs are included, with indexing back to 1874. Covers the full spectrum of subjects and all aspects of music, including music education, performance, ethnomusicology, musical theatre, theory, popular music forms and composition
Oxford Music Online
The most comprehensive online music encyclopedia, combining access to Grove Music Online with the Encyclopedia of Popular Music and other reference resources.
Performing Arts Periodicals Database
An index to over 395 journal titles – over 160 of which are available in full text - in the fields of dance, drama, film, theater, opera, puppetry, circus, and other forms of performance art.

Gale Business Insights
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GBI is a great first-stop for business and management information. It includes information on companies and industries from business and trade journals, academic journals, industry reports, newspapers, newsletters, and classic business reference sources. Search on a company name. In the search results, click on individual companies to open well-organized company profiles.
Business Source Complete
Dates of coverage vary, some journals back to early 20th century. Abstracts and full text in virtually all subject areas related to Business, Management and Finance. Journal and magazine articles; also books, industry reports, company profiles, SWOT analysis, much more
EconLit
Abstracts journal articles, books, dissertations, and working papers in economics. New records added monthly. Produced by American Economic Association.
Nexis Uni
Nexis Uni contains thousands of full-text sources including newspapers, wires, transcripts, newsletters, magazines, trade journals; also industry news, company information, law reviews, court decisions, statutes. Coverage dates vary. International and U.S. sources. (Previously called Lexis Nexis Academic).

Ethnic NewsWatch
1960-present. Full text U.S. ethnic community newspapers, newsletters, magazines. Includes African-American, Arab/Middle Eastern, Asian-Pacific, European-American, Hispanic, Jewish, Native-American. Searchable in English and Spanish.
Chicano Database
Comprehensive bibliographic index representing all types of material on Mexican-American topics. Provides extensive indexing from 1960s to the present; selective coverage back to early 1900s. Since 1992 includes articles on the broader Latino experience.
HAPI: Hispanic American Periodicals Index
1970-present. Lists journal articles on Central and South America, Mexico, the Caribbean, the U.S.-Mexico border region, and Hispanics in the U.S.

Access Science
Includes thousands of articles, dictionary terms and research updates in all areas of science and technology. Also includes over 2000 biographies of leading scientists, weekly updates of breakthroughs and discoveries in science and technology, a science dictionary, and links to related websites. Limited to two simultaneous users at a time.
ACM Digital Library & Guide to the Computing Literature
1947-present. The ACM Digital Library includes bibliographic information, abstracts, and full text of works published by the Association for Computing Machinery. The Guide to the Computing Literature indexes journal articles and conference proceedings from additional societies and commercial publishers including IEEE, Springer, Elsevier, SIAM, Usenix, etc., making this database the first choice for computer research. Provides bibliometrics on Authors and Institutions. Beta UCSD institutional profile now available.
Applied Science & Technology Full Text
Contains indexing and abstracts for nearly 800 core English-language, scientific and technical publications back to 1983. Full text of articles is available from more than 220 periodicals dating back to 1997. Content includes coverage of a wide variety of applied science specialties--acoustics to aeronautics, neural networks to nuclear and civil engineering, computers and informatics and much more. Can search in combination with Applied Science & Business Periodicals Retrospective 1913-1983.
CogNet Library
A growing collection of searchable electronic texts for cognitive, brain, and computer sciences from MIT Press and others.
Inspec
Indexes 16+ million journal articles and conference papers in physics, electrical engineering and electronics, and computer science. Also good for related disciplines like geophysics, astronomy, mechanical engineering, biomedical engineering, ocean engineering, and acoustics. Indexes IEEE conference papers and standards. ****You can now cross search with Compendex for a more comprehensive search of the engineering literature; duplicate results can be removed.

Film and Television Literature Index
1987-present; limited 1970-86. Covers writing about film and television for scholars, students and the general public. Subjects include film & television theory, preservation & restoration, writing, production, cinematography, technical aspects, reviews
FIAF: International Index to Film Periodicals
1972-present. Includes comprehensive coverage of television periodicals 1972-2000, and coverage of tv in film periodicals since that date. Also several other more specialized databases on film research.
Film Index International
Film Index International is a major information resource for entertainment films and personalities produced in collaboration with the British Film Institute.
Film and Television Literature Index
1987-present; limited 1970-86. Covers writing about film and television for scholars, students and the general public. Subjects include film & television theory, preservation & restoration, writing, production, cinematography, technical aspects, reviews

Contemporary Women's Issues
Abstracts and some full-text articles from more than 1500 publications, offering a multidisciplinary focus on gender issues.
GenderWatch
A full text database of publications that focus on the impact of gender across a broad spectrum of subject areas. 1970s-present.
LGBT Life
A resource for literature regarding gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues. Contains indexing and abstracts for more than 120 GLBT-specific core periodicals.
LGBT Studies in Video
LGBT Studies in Video is a cinematic survey of the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people as well as the cultural and political evolution of the LGBT community. This collection features award-winning documentaries, interviews, archival footage, and select feature films exploring LGBT history, gay culture and subcultures, civil rights, marriage equality, LGBT families, AIDS, transgender issues, religious perspectives on homosexuality, global comparative experiences, and other topics.
LGBT Thought and Culture
This resource hosts the key works and, in future releases, archival documentation of LGBT underground political and social movements throughout the 20th century and into the present day. The collection will include select rare works from Alyson Books, Cleis Press, Firebrand Books, and major winners of the Stonewall Book Awards and Lambda Literary Awards. Also included will be personal papers of key figures and archival materials from local and national organizations; and seminal texts, letters, speeches, interviews, and ephemera covering the political evolution of gay rights as well as memoirs, biographies, poetry, and works of fiction that illuminate the lives of lesbians, gays, transgendered, and bisexual individuals and the community.
Women's Studies International
1972-present. Abstracts of journal articles, books and other materials drawn from a variety of women's studies databases, including Womens Studies Abstracts (1984-present).

America: History and Life
1895-present. International database for research on all periods of U.S. and Canadian history, including very recent years. Includes abstracts of journal articles and listings of books and dissertations. Over 1,800 journals are indexed.
Humanities Full-Text
Includes many of the most important academic journals in the humanities with the full text of articles from over 300 periodicals dating back to 1995, and high-quality indexing for almost 700 journals—of which 470 are peer-reviewed—dating as far back as 1984.
MLA International Bibliography
The primary database of citations to journal articles, monographs, book chapters, and dissertations in the fields of non-Classical
literatures and folklore. Important source for linguistics and non-technical aspects of theater & film. Ca. 1890 - present.
Philosopher's Index
The premiere bibliographic database covering worldwide research in all subject areas of philosophy. It contains works on philosophy from both philosophy and interdisciplinary sources. There are author-written abstracts for most records. The global database contains more than 680,000 records with source publications from 139 countries in 37 languages. The primary languages are English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. Primary coverage spans from 1940 to present with additional records dating back to 1893.
Project Muse: Scholarly Journals and Books Online
Search by subject or browse full text scholarly journals in the arts and humanities, social sciences and mathematics. More than 700 journals from over 250 university presses and scholarly publishers are available. Coverage begins 1906 or later, depending on the publication. UCSD also has access to over 30,000 book titles.

Anthropology Plus
Indexing database for anthropology, archaeology & related topics. Indexes articles in 2500+ scholarly journals, 1870 to present. Combines databases: Anthropological Literature (Harvard/Tozzer) and Anthropological Index (Royal Anthropological Institute)
Communication & Mass Media Complete
Coverage varies, but some back to early 1900s. Articles in communication, mass media, linguistics, and film studies. CMMC offers cover-to-cover ("core") indexing and abstracts for over 370 journals, and selected ("priority") coverage of over 230 more, for a combined coverage of over 600 titles. Many journals have indexing, abstracts, PDFs and searchable cited references from their first issues to the present (dating as far back as 1915).
Family & Society Studies Worldwide
Publications indexed are drawn from a wide range of social science disciplines including anthropology, sociology, psychology, demography, health sciences, education, economics, law, history, and social work. Covers 1970-present.
Left Index
Access to the diversity of literature on the left, with a primary emphasis on politically and culturally engaged scholarship inside and outside the academy and a secondary emphasis on significant but little known sources of news and ideas.
Nexis Uni
Nexis Uni contains thousands of full-text sources including newspapers, wires, transcripts, newsletters, magazines, trade journals; also industry news, company information, law reviews, court decisions, statutes. Coverage dates vary. International and U.S. sources. (Previously called Lexis Nexis Academic).
PAIS International (Public Affairs Information Service)
1972-present. Lists print and electronic articles, books, and government publications on issues of public policy, including politics, government, economy, marine policy, law.
PsycINFO
1597-present. From the American Psychological Association. Provides access to scholarly literature in the psychological, social, behavioral, and health sciences. Includes journal articles, books, chapters, and dissertations. Includes approximately 2,500 journals. Updated weekly.
Social Sciences Full Text
Indexes and provides abstracts of articles published since 1983 in over 700 social sciences journals, with full-text provided for most articles published from 1994+.
SocINDEX with Full Text
This database contains full text for 890 journals dating back to 1908. This database also includes full text for more than 850 books and monographs; full text for over 16,800 conference papers; and informative abstracts for more than 1,300 "core" coverage journals dating as far back as 1895. Subjects covered include criminology & criminal justice, demography, ethnic & racial studies, gender studies, marriage & family, political sociology, religion, rural & urban sociology, social development, social psychology, social structure, social work, socio-cultural anthropology, sociological history, sociological research, sociological theory, substance abuse & other addictions, violence and many others.
Sociological Abstracts
1963-present. Abstracts journal articles, monographs, dissertations, conference proceedings, other research covering sociology, social work, and related social sciences. Also includes selected web resources.
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
1975-present. Research within the political science discipline and its complementary fields, including international relations, law, and public administration/policy. Use the Get it at UC button to find full text, print, and/or request the item from another library.

Aquatic Sciences & Fisheries Abstracts (ASFA)
The ASFA database is a premier source for aquatic resources, covering over 7,000 journals, books, reports, & conference proceedings mainly from 1971 - to present, with some coverage back to the 1800s. This database is ideal for research in the areas of aquaculture, aquatic organisms, aquatic pollution, conservation, fisheries, marine biotechnology, oceanography, policy & legislation, and wildlife management.
Consult the ProQuest online guide for help searching this database, features for refining your search, saving results as alerts or RSS feeds, and emailing or downloading your search & results: https://proquest.libguides.com/asfa
BIOSIS Citation Index
BIOSIS coverage is from 1926 to present and includes around 6,000 journals, conference proceedings, books, & technical reports in all aspects of biological sciences. The BIOSIS Citation Index database is an excellent database for all biological information, including marine biology, biological oceanography, marine ecology, developmental biology, and molecular biology. This is the preferred database to use over BIOSIS Previews because you can search for cited references.
CINAHL
1937 - present. Covers indexing of over 5000 journals in nursing and the allied health sciences, with full text for over 700 of those journals. Coverage includes nursing, biomedicine, health sciences librarianship, alternative & complementary medicine, consumer health and 17 allied health disciplines.
PTSDpubs Database
An electronic index to the worldwide literature on post traumatic stress disorder and other mental health sequelae of exposure to traumatic events.
PsycINFO
1597-present. From the American Psychological Association. Provides access to scholarly literature in the psychological, social, behavioral, and health sciences. Includes journal articles, books, chapters, and dissertations. Includes approximately 2,500 journals. Updated weekly.
PubMed
Covers over 5,700 journals in the biomedical and health sciences and years covered late 1940's - present, with additional older medical literature selectively added. Search using keywords or the controlled vocabulary called MeSH. PubMed will automatically match your keyword terms to MeSH terms. For additional tips, see the Library's PubMed page.

Academic Search Complete
Multidisciplinary database with 17,800+ journals and magazines, of which 16,000+ are peer-reviewed and 8,750+ are full-text. Also included are books, conference papers and proceedings, government documents, newspapers, video content, and more. Coverage begins in 1887, with material in English, Spanish, German, French, Italian and Portuguese.
Web of Science
Indexes over 18,000 journals in all subjects (coverage back to 1900 for science and social science journals), as well as 80,000 books and more than 180K conference proceedings. Includes the popular "cited reference search" to identify papers which have cited a previously published work or author. Can also sort by "times cited" and find related articles based on commonly cited works.
JSTOR
Search by subject or browse 2,600+ full-text titles, predominantly scholarly journals and books in social sciences, history, humanities, and science and mathematics, to their earliest issues. Many titles extend as far back as late 19th or early 20th centuries; most recent 3-5 years often not included. JSTOR provides access to more than 12 million academic journal articles, books, and primary sources in 75 disciplines.