Recommended Databases
- American Periodicals Series This link opens in a new window
Date(s): 1740-1940
Historic magazine and journal articles, including professional, childrens' and womens' magazines. - 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.
- MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
Journal articles, books and dissertations focusing on literature and literary criticism, language, and publishing.
- Gale Literature Criticism This link opens in a new window
A compilation of commentary essays on literary works, including drama, poetry, and short stories, from the 15th through 20th centuries
- Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA) This link opens in a new window
Citations and abstracts for journal articles and book reviews in linguistics and the study of language.
- World Shakespeare Bibliography Online This link opens in a new window
Citations and annotations for significant books, journal articles, reviews, dissertations, productions, audiovisual materials, and other resources related to William Shakespeare's works.
Historical Material in Library Databases
(organized by dates of coverage)
- Iter Bibliography This link opens in a new window
Citations for journal articles, reviews, books, and other sources about the Middle Ages and Renaissance (400-1700).
- Defining Gender This link opens in a new window
Primary sources from British Archives relating to the study and experience of gender.
- EEBO: Early English Books Online This link opens in a new window
Date(s): 1473-1700
Historical ebooks published in English in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and British North America. - Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) This link opens in a new window
Date(s): 1701-1800
British and American primary sources from the 18th century. - London Times Digital Archive This link opens in a new window
Date(s):1785-2019
Articles from the London Times, including all pictures and advertisements. - Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO) This link opens in a new window
Date(s): 1789-1914
British and American primary sources from the "long" 19th century. - C19: The Nineteenth Century Index This link opens in a new window
Date(s): 1800s
Citations for 19th-century books, periodicals, newspapers, and archival sources. Searching Guide - New York Times Historical This link opens in a new window
Date(s):1851-2020
Articles from the New York Times, including all pictures and advertisements.
*For more historical newspapers, sign up for a BPL eCard and you can search the America's Historical Newspapers database.
- Atla Religion Database This link opens in a new window
Citations for journal articles, books and book chapters on all religious topics.
- Philosopher's Index This link opens in a new window
Citations and abstracts for journal articles, books, chapters, and reviews in all major fields of philosophy.
- Religion and the Law This link opens in a new window
Books, journal articles, and other resources on the relationship between various world religions, religious law, and systems of government.
Article Databases
- 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.
- Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window
Journal articles, magazines, and news in almost every subject area.
- ProQuest Central This link opens in a new window
Journal articles, magazines, and news in almost every subject area.
Searching for Articles
- Spend some time brainstorming keywords and search terms. Use subject headings or descriptors to help generate search terms.
- You’ll want to use keywords instead of phrases. See if you can express each part of your topic in one or two words. Think of words that are likely to be used as subject keywords or titles.
- Use "quotes to indicate phrases." Use AND, OR,to build a more complicated search.
- If your keywords aren’t working, think of synonyms or other ways of phrasing your topic and try those. Also remember alternate spellings. Or, try a less-specific search, with fewer or broader keywords.
- When you find a good article, look at its References or Works Cited list. That will often lead you to other useful sources.
Not all materials in the research databases are scholarly. In some databases, you can narrow your results to include only those articles published in scholarly journals. This will eliminate most (but not all!) non-scholarly documents from your search results. Remember that some articles published in scholarly journals, such as book reviews or editorials, are not scholarly themselves.To review what makes an article scholarly or non-scholarly, check out the Is it Scholarly? box on the Getting Started page of this guide.
Databases that can limit to scholarly journal articles include the blue-and-green EBSCO databases (Academic Search Premier, MLA Bibliography, etc.) and all ProQuest databases (and some others):
