Research Databases
About Databases
A database is a collection of information that is arranged and tagged for easy searching and retrieval. Think of a database like an online storage container: It stores different publications, journals, books, magazines, and newspapers and makes it possible for you to access them. The library subscribes to over 300 databases that are available for Holy Cross students to use. Visit our A-Z Databases list to see what is available.
Subject Databases
Subject databases include journals and publications from a specific academic field. They may include a number of different publications, but they are all within the same academic area. These can be helpful if you want to look at one specific subject or field.
To find subject databases, go to the A-Z Database List. In the dropdown menu labeled "Subjects," select your subject area and click "Search." Some Psychology databases are listed below.
- PsycINFO This link opens in a new window
Citations and abstracts for journal articles, book chapters, books and dissertations in the field of psychology.
- ProQuest Psychology Journals This link opens in a new window
Journal, magazine and news articles, dissertations, and other publications relating to psychology.
General Databases
General databases include information and journals that cover many subjects and academic fields. These can be a good place to start if you’re not sure what subject your topic falls under, if your topic is interdisciplinary and falls under multiple subject areas, if you want to see perspectives from different fields about your topic, or if you simply want to find general information.
To find general databases, go to the A-Z Database List. In the dropdown menu labeled "Subjects," select "_General" and click "Search." You will see a list of general databases, with some highlighted as "Best Bets." Some general databases are listed below.
- Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window
Journal articles, magazines, and news in almost every subject area.
- JSTOR Arts & Sciences This link opens in a new window
Journal articles in almost every subject area, including some historical articles back to the 17th century.
CrossSearch
CrossSearch is a one-stop search tool that lets you search most of the informational resources available through the library, including:
- Books, ebooks, archival materials, media and music scores owned by the Holy Cross Libraries.
- Research databases like Academic Search Premier, JSTOR, ARTstor and ProQuest Central.
- E-journal collections like JSTOR and ScienceDirect.
- The Holy Cross digital repository CrossWorks.
- Open Access collections such as HaithiTrust Digital Library
As you can see, CrossSearch looks in many different places and for many different types of sources. In one search, you might see results for academic journal articles, books in the library’s collection, films, newspaper articles, and more. This can be a good place to start if you want to see a broad scope of the resources available on your topic. However, because CrossSearch includes so many types of resources, you might find you need to filter these results more than you would in a more specific database.
CrossSearch is best accessed through the library home page (https://www.holycross.edu/library).
- CrossSearch(on the Libraries' homepage)
Tracing the Scholarly Conversation
The Scholarly Conversation
Researchers build on past research in a field to develop their own ideas and theories. We call this the scholarly conversation - a connected web of years and years of research building off what came before it and generating new ideas. One way to see this conversation in action is to think about who an author cites in their research and who cites that author. Citation is how people give credit to other work they build from.
Trace Citations
When you look at a source, you can look at the author's footnotes, references, or bibliography to see who they cited. You can use their citation to find the original source to view yourself. You can also see who cited the article you are reading - this is a great way to find out what came after your source and to see how other researchers are building on it.
One way to see who has cited a source is to look in Google Scholar. Enter the title of the article you are looking at and click search. Find the correct article in the results. If that article has been cited by someone else, you will see a link below the result that says "Cited By." Click there and Google Scholar will refresh to show you all of the articles or sources that have cited that original article.
Finding Resources from Citations
The video below demonstrates how to find a resource from a citation using the Holy Cross Libraries search features.