What Is a Research Database?
A research database is a searchable online resource that provides access to content from newspapers, magazines, professional journals, and other media sources. Typically college students use databases to find content (usually journal articles) for use in their research papers and projects. Databases may include full-text content, partial full-text content, or simply publication information (with or without summarizing abstracts).
Most research databases are proprietary, meaning that they are only accessible because the library has a paid subscription to them. The databases listed at the right are all proprietary. See the A-Z Databases page for a complete list of the library's databases.
What if Full Text Isn't Available?
Sometimes a database includes information about a journal article but does not include the full-text article itself. In such cases you have two options for retrieving that article:
1. Click on the 
image included in the record.
2. If that option isn't available, fill out the Article Request form in the library's website. (On the library's homepage the link to the request form is located in the left-hand column.) Graduate students may request up to 5 articles per week. If the library cannot locate full-text access for you per your request, it will then place an interlibrary loan request on your behalf in order to procure a copy of the article from another institution.
SEARCHING FOR JOURNAL ARTICLES
Where Are Journal Articles Located?
Journal articles can be found by searching in the library's online research databases. A selected list of databases is included below (next box down). A full list of the library's research databases can be found here. (To reach this list from the library's homepage, click on the "Find..." link in the left-hand column and then, on the page that appears, click on the purple box marked "Databases.")
Database Search Tips
Use Boolean Operators to Combine Keywords
The process of searching for journal articles is oftentimes made more successful by combining keywords with the uppercase terms AND, OR, and NOT (a.k.a. Boolean operators). Doing this creates a search formula that better enables the database to zero in on exactly what you're searching for.
Be advised that you always need to include these Boolean operators in uppercase. If you don't, the database will simply ignore the words.
Examples:
a) I need journal articles about both elephants and extinction.
Search formula ►►► elephants AND extinction
b) I need journal articles about either veganism or vegetarianism.
Search formula ►►► veganism OR vegetarianism
c) I need journal articles about poisonings but not about lead.
Search formula ►►► poisonings NOT lead
Use Quotation Marks for Keyword Phrases
If your search term is a phrase rather than a single word, it's always best to enclose the phrase in quotation marks. This ensures that the database knows you want to search using the phrase as a phrase rather than searching for each word of the phrase as a separate search term.
So, for example, if you use the search phrase baseball bats without using quotation marks, the database will look for articles about baseball bats (the object), but it may also look for articles about baseball (the sport) and bats (the animal). Enclosing the search phrase within quotation marks essentially instructs the database to search exclusively for baseball bats (the object).
Use an Asterisk to Truncate Keywords
In some instances it may be helpful to use truncation in order to instruct the database to find as many variations of a keyword as possible. Truncation involves placing an asterisk (*) immediately after the shortened form of a keyword.
So, for example, rather than using the keyword vegan you use veg* instead. Doing this lets the database know you want to search not only for vegan but also for vegetarian and vegetarianism. Likewise, using pol* instructs the database to search not only for politicians but also for political and for politics.
Truncation can have unexpected results, though. The database doesn't know, for instance, that your intent in using pol* is to only find articles relating to politics. So it searches for any word beginning with pol, including polar and poland and police and pollution. This is why it's oftentimes best to use a truncated keyword in combination with one or more additional keywords.
Use Sophisticated Search Formulas
You can combine the foregoing methods to produce sophisticated search formulas that have the potential for making your database searching as successful as possible.
Examples:
a) I need journal articles about public housing and racism.
Search formula ►►► "public housing" AND racism
b) I need journal articles about nutrition and children under age ten.
Search formula ►►► nutrition AND children NOT teenagers
c) I need journal articles about human rights as it relates to war in Asia but not including the Korean War.
Search formula ►►► "human rights" AND war AND asia NOT kor*
RESEARCH DATABASES RELEVANT TO SOCIAL JUSTICE
RELIGION
SOCIOLOGY
LAW / POLITICAL SCIENCE / PUBLIC POLICY
ENVIRONMENT / GENDER / SEXUALITY
MULTI-TOPIC
Note: If you're having problems with off-campus access to a research database, the most common reason is that it doesn't recognize you as an authorized user. An easy way to fix this problem is to go to the MyUrsuline webpage and log in. Then continue to use that same browser when accessing library resources.
LIBKEY NOMAD
As a student researcher, the first place you normally search for content for your papers and projects is the library's research databases and online catalog.
But there may be times, of course, when you're out on the Web and find a citation(s) for usable content (ex. articles indexed in Google Scholar, references at the bottom of a Wikipedia article). So the library recommends you use a software product called LibKey Nomad.
Once LibKey Nomad is added to your browser, it automatically detects citations on webpages and tags those for which you have full-text access via the library.