Research Guides: Global Studies Senior Capstone Project: Find Scholarly Literature

Literature Databases--An Overview

The Purdue Library Catalog can be helpful in browsing books in the Purdue collection. The catalog also allows you to search for whole journal issues by performing a "Journal Search" and searching the journal title.

However, Literature Databases are tools that enable library users to perform more targeted searches for scholarly literature. These databases are usually designed according to subject and can either simply index an article (or book chapter) or provide the article in full-text.

Tool Features:

Subject-specific limiters to refine search results (e.g. historical time period, age group, etc.)
Controlled vocabulary determined by field experts to classify articles for structured searching
Records providing bibliographic information for sources both within and without Purdue
Folder creation capabilities for account holders

General or Multidisciplinary Literature Databases

For some relevant subject-specific databases, browse Resources by Theme in this guide.

The following databases are multi-disciplinary databases and can be helpful for searching for research works that don't have a clear disciplinary home:

Academic Search Complete
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Academic Search Complete is a general academic index that indexes more than 8,200 magazines and journals from every academic discipline and provides the full-text of more than 4,600.
JSTOR
Full-text digital archive of over 2600 scholarly journals, especially strong in Social Sciences, Humanities, Economics, and Mathematics.
PAIS International
Bibliographic index with abstracts covering issues in the public debate through selective coverage of a wide variety of international sources including journal articles, books, government documents, statistical directories, grey literature, research reports, conference papers, web content, and more. Coverage 1972-present.
Proquest Research Library
This database provides one-stop access to more than 4,000 periodicals from one of the broadest, most inclusive general reference databases ProQuest has to offer. Search from a highly-respected, diversified mix of scholarly journals, trade publications and magazines covering over 150 academic disciplines.
Web of Science: Core Collection
Access the world’s leading scholarly literature in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities and examine proceedings of international conferences, symposia, seminars, colloquia, workshops, and conventions.