A Database is a collection of information stored in an electronic format, that can be searched by a computer. |
Quite often, students search a database to find journal articles. Databases can also contain:
conference proceedings, technical reports, book reviews, theses, dissertations, and other types of information.
Some databases are fulltext, which means you can find the fulltext of your articles or other documents. Other databases are citation databases only, which means they give you citation information about your article, etc., and quite often links to fulltext, but don't contain fulltext within the database.
Databases can be general in nature and cover many different subjects. Or, databases can be subject specific, with information focused on certain subjects.
Some general databases are: EBSCO Academic Search Premier, CBCA Complete, Credo Reference, JSTOR, Research Library.
Subject specific databases at the Dalhousie Libraries include: Agriculture & Environmental Science, Anthropological Index Online, Biological Abstracts, Compendex (Engineering Village), Econlit, Food Science and Technology Abstracts, Historical Abstracts, Naxos Music Library, Opera in Video, Philosopher's Index, IEEE/IEE Electronic Library, The Avery Index (Architecture).
You can search to see if the Dalhousie Libraries has access to a certain database by using the search box on the Libraries' homepage:
If you need help deciding which database to use for your research, a good place to start is with the Subject Guide for your specific program or area of study. Most guides have a tab for databases or finding journal articles.
Books, sometimes also called texts or monographs, are relatively lengthy works, often on a single topic. They may be print or electronic.
Search for books using the Library catalogue, called Novanet. The Novanet search box can be found on the Libraries' homepage: libraries.dal.ca
For help using the Novanet catalogue, there are some online tutorials available. You can also contact me, your liaison librarian, or visit the Service Desk of any Dalhousie library.
The words journal, serial, and periodical are often used to refer to the same type of resource -- a publication that is issued on a regular schedule, for example every week (like Newsweek), every month (like National Geographic), or every year (like the Annual Review of Anthropology).
Journals can be popular (like People, Psychology Today), or scholarly/academic. Scholarly or academic journals are collections of articles written by professors, researchers, or experts in a given field.
If articles in a journal undergo a review process by other experts in a particular field of study, prior to publication, these articles are known as peer-reviewed.
You can find print and electronic journals held at the Dalhousie Libraries, by doing a journal search on the Libraries' homepage, using the search box:
Peer-reviewed journal articles go through a checking or verification process before they are published. Other experts in the same field of study as that of the article, examine the article's content to make sure it is valid and correct before the article is published. Articles that have gone through this validation process are known as peer-reviewed articles.
This is a visual image of the peer-review process:
https://ucsd.libguides.com/CAT3/peerreview
Google Scholar is easy to use and searching is familiar since most of us use Google.
You can set up Google Scholar to link to the Dalhousie Libraries' electronic resources so that you have access to fulltext.
Now when you do a search, you will see links like this next to entries, when full text is available: