Research Guides: Black Women's Studies: Database & Journal Finder

Subject Guide

Tahirah Akbar-Williams

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4235 McKeldin Library
College Park, 20746

3014059195

Subjects: African American Studies, Education

Database Search Techniques

Why Use Databases?

Databases are subscription resources that bring articles from a variety of magazines and/or journals into one place with a sophisticated search engine. Many of the databases allow you to read the entire article online. All databases that UMD Libraries subscribe to can be accessed through Database Finder.

Library Databases vs Search Engines

Click on the video below to watch a tutorial on the differences between a subscription-based library database and a free search engine. It explains when and how to use each. (Access video by clicking the image).

Google Scholar is a special case, a search engine that actually allows you connect to with the library databases. This is great for doing a quick, general search for articles on your topic. For more refined searches, please use the databases listed below on this page. The video below explains how to connect your Google Scholar account to your UMD Libraries account:

For more information on how to do more effective searches, please refer to the tabs above:

How to Search
Finding Background Information
Develop a Search Strategy
Searching Tips

Watch these short video tutorials to learn how to search the databases.

EBSCO:

ProQuest:

You can also search multiple databases at once!

EBSCOhost and ProQuest are platforms that house approximately 60 to 75 databases. In order to get the best search results you should select the databases you need (i.e. if your subject is "education" you would limit your search to education databases) . To do this go to the top of the database homepage and look for the terms All databases, Change databases, or Choose databases. See examples and video tutorial below.

For ProQuest:

For EBSCOhost:

What if there is no full text?

Don't panic! You have several options:

1st Option:
Use journal finder to search for the journal.
2nd Option: Request article from another library
This tutorial will assist you in using Inter Library Loan to request the article.

Finding Background Information

Start your research by exploring the following resources:


UMD WorldCat & Catalog	Academic Search Complete

G oogle Scholar	UMD Libraries Databases

Tips for Organizing Your Research

Visit our Research Commons' Site for creative and practical suggestions.

Searching Strategies

Choosing your search topic can be a difficult process - it is important to pick a topic that is not so narrow that little if anything has been written about it, yet it is also important to pick a topic that is not so broad that there is too much information and it is impossible to develop a coherent and focused thesis.

Let's say that ....

Steps:

1. Divide your research question into concepts and connect them with the Boolean operator AND.

smoking AND youth

2. Brainstorm some synonyms and connect them with the Boolean operator OR:

smoking OR tobacco OR “pipe smoking”, etc.
Specific communities? (ex. minority, African-American, immigrants, low-income, children, etc.)
Look up ‘smoking’ in MeSH.

3. Your final search strategy could look like:

smoking AND (youth OR teens OR teenagers) AND minority NOT Canada

A brief video tutorial on how Boolean operators work.

Searching techniques to limit or expand your results

Boolean search	AND OR NOT	Find all the words Find any of the words Find documents which have the first word, but not the second word	internet AND education internet OR intranet internet NOT html
Phrase search	"..."	Search for an exact phrase by using quotes around the phrase	"environmental health"
Truncation	*	Find all forms of a word - the asterisk *is used as a right-handed truncation character only.	Searching for econom* will find "economy", "economics", "economical", etc.
Wildcard	?	Replace any single character, either inside the word or the right end of the word. ? cannot be used to begin a word.	Searching for wom?n will find "woman" and "women."

Keywords/synonyms

It is important to realize that if you search a database with a certain word or phrase and you don't retrieve results to your liking, it doesn't mean that there are no other articles in that database on your topic. It may mean that you need to try other related words in your search, such as synonyms. For example, try automobile or auto instead of car.

Magazines & Newspapers	Written for a general audience Typically what you would see in a bookstore or on a magazine stand Intended to inform and/or entertain Popular journals do not undergo 'peer-review' process Can be found in many of the article databases to which the University of Maryland subscribes Examples: Time, Sports Illustrated, Scientific American, etc.
Scholarly Journals	Written by/for experts in a given field Usually these are available through academic libraries or anywhere there is a need for the highly specialized information contained within these publications Intended to inform Undergo 'peer-review' process prior to publication (see below) To focus on these resources when searching UM article databases, be sure to limit your search to 'scholarly' or 'peer-reviewed' literature Examples: American Journal of Public Health, Genetic Epidemiology,Family and Community Health, etc.
Books	Overview, broader in scope Can be out-of-date, so be sure to check the publication date
Open web	Large variety in terms of quality As opposed to subscription-based internet resources such as article databases and e-journals that the UMCP libraries subscribe to.

Criteria for evaluating resources:

Accuracy
- How does this resource match up with others you've seen?
- Do the results seem plausible?
Authority
- Who created it?
- What are the qualifications of the creator?
- Where is the information hosted? (see Web Domains below)
Content
- Is this written in a ‘professional’ manner?
- Is it sloppy?
- What kind of evidence does the creator use to support what they are saying?
Purpose
- Is this written in an objective, detached way?
- Is this someone’s personal opinion?
- Who is the intended audience?
Timeliness
- When was this produced?
- If a website, when was this updated last?
- How old are the works that are foot-noted/cited?

Some examples:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - a reliable source for information from
Pet Therapy - the author is unknown, not updated since 2007

Web Domains

Anyone can create a Web site. It is important to find out who is the author and what are the author's qualifications or expertise in order to determine the credibility and reliability of the information.

.com	Produced by a commercial enterprise, trying to sell something or funded by advertisers
.edu	From an educational institution (college, high school, museum)
.net	Network of computers
.mil	A military site
.gov	Produced by the government
.org	Produced by a nonprofit organization
.uk, .cn, .us, etc.	A country-sponsored site
.md.us	A web site from the state of Maryland

Databases for Black Women's Studies

Database Finder and Journal Finder are your portals to research databases and electronic journals.

Databases are subscription resources that bring articles from a variety of magazines and/or journals into one place with a sophisticated search engine. Many of the databases allow you to read the entire article online. Consult Database Finder for the full list of available subject databases. Remember also that with EBSCOhost and ProQuest, you can choose from a list of databases and search all of them at once.

Citation Finder is an additional resource to help find specific articles.

The UM Libraries subscribe to over 800 databases!!! The ones listed here are most useful education databases where you'll be able to find information on your topics. See the Supplemental Databases tab for a fuller list of related subject databases.

Academic Search Ultimate Multi-disciplinary database providing information for nearly every area of academic study. Includes an enormous collection of the most valuable peer-reviewed full text journals, as well as additional journals, magazines, newspapers and books. Multidisciplinary subjects including: social sciences, humanities, education, computer sciences, engineering, physics, chemistry, language & linguistics, arts & literature, medicine, ethnic studies. 1965- present.
African American Communities Primary source resource containing information focusing on race relations across social, political, cultural and religious arena. Highlights include the Chicago Urban League papers c.1916-1985, material on the legal battles for the desegregation of public schools and buses from the papers of Thomas J. Pearsall, James B. McMillan and Algernon Lee Butler, the complete run of The messenger, 1925-1928, a popular civil rights magazine published by activist A . Philip Randolph, family papers of prominent African American families in Atlanta, c.1870-1965, and oral histories of individuals in the civil rights movement in Atlanta and personal accounts from members of the Weeksville community.
AODL: Africa Online Digital Library AODL benefits a wide variety of scholars, students, and institutions by producing multilingual, multimedia materials for both scholarly research and public viewing audiences. AODL serves scholars and students conducting research and teaching about West and South Africa as well as teachers and students of African languages in both the United States and Africa. It also provides a valuable model for creating and distributing a diverse array of materials in a region with very limited electronic connectivity.
America: History & Life with Full-Text Core American history database now includes unique full-text coverage of nearly 200 journals and 100 books. Information on articles, books, book reviews, and dissertations on U.S. and Canadian history from prehistory to the present. Covers more than 2000 international worldwide. All aspects of historical research. Time span: 1964-present.

Black Feminism Collection of information on black feminism.

Black Thought and Culture Contains full text and bibliographic information about the black community and its leaders, from the 1700's to present times. Includes monographs, essays, articles, speeches, interviews, and other publications. Contains many never before published materials. Most significant, for the first time in electronic format, newspaper articles from the Black Panther Party publication is made available.
CQ Researcher Full-text database that provides comprehensive analysis of each topic, including history and background information, relevant pro & con arguments, current status, bibliographies, contact information, and outlooks on upcoming "hot topics" in current events. Covers news topics in a wide range of subject fields, from social issues to the environment, health, education, politics, and science and technology. Online access to issues dating back to October 25, 1991.
Dissertations & Theses Global This database is the an authoritative source for information about doctoral dissertations and master's theses. The database represents the work of authors from over 1,000 graduate schools and universities. Full text is available from 1997 to the present. It also contains a significant amount of new international dissertations and theses both in citations and in full text. It offers access to more than 90 percent of the doctoral dissertations accepted each year in North America. The database also covers thousands of dissertations and theses from around the globe. Time Span: 1861 to present.
Ethnic NewsWatch Full-text bilingual (English/Spanish) database of 200 publications of the ethnic, minority, and native press. 1990 to the present. Multidisciplinary - news, culture, and history.
Historical Abstracts with Full-Text Core international history database now includes unique full-text coverage of nearly 200 journals and 100 books. It also provides indexing for over 1700 journals from 1964 to the present.
Black Studies Periodicals Includes current and retrospective bibliographic citations and abstracts from over 150 scholarly and popular journals, newspapers and newsletters from the U.S., Africa and the Caribbean. Indexing 1902 to present, full-text coverage of 40 core Black Studies periodicals 1998 to present. Coverage is international in scope and multidisciplinary - spanning cultural, economic, historical, religious, social, and political issues of vital importance to the Black Studies discipline.
JSTOR Electronic archive of core journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. Includes complete runs of journals with full-text of all articles published from volume 1, issue 1. Please note, most journals have a “moving wall” (time lag) of three to five years between the most current issue published and content available on JSTOR. Coverage spans the humanities, sciences, and social sciences.
MasterFILE Premier Provides abstracts and indexing for 2,650 general periodicals. Full text of articles for nearly 2,000 periodicals, and 5,000 full text Magill Book Reviews. Multidisciplinary subjects including general reference, business, education, health, general science, multi-cultural issues, biography, and travel. 1975- present.
Opposing Viewpoints in Context Fulltext database covering social issues with topic overviews and pro/con viewpoints. Sources include news, journal articles, magazines, media, maps, websites and statistics.
Oxford African American Studies Center A full-text database that provides comprehensive coverage of the African American experience. Updated quarterly, the online collection contains scholarly articles, biographies, commentaries, primary sources, subject entries, film clips, images, maps, charts, tables, web sites, and timelines. The core content of the electronic file consists of reference works including Africana; Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895; Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present; Black Women in America, Second Edition; and African American National Biography. Additional reference titles include the Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature; Oxford Companion to Black British History; and selected articles from other major reference titles.
Periodicals Archive Online An online archive of digitized, full-image journal articles, Periodicals Archive Online (PAO) provides access to hundreds of scholarly journals. Coverage includes U.S. and international scholarly journal literature in the arts, humanities and social sciences disciplines with date coverage ranging from 1802 to 2000. NOTE: Current journal issues are not included in PAO but may be covered in other journal collections (use Find It).
Project Muse Full text of recent issues of over 240 journals from 40 scholarly publishers. Covers the fields of literary studies, history, the visual & performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, economics, and many other arts and humanities and social science disciplines. Covers the fields of literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, economics, and many other arts and humanities and social science disciplines. Time span: Varies by journal. Some back to 1993, the majority from 1997 to the present.
Race Relations in America Primary source material on the Civil Rights Movement, segregation, discrimination and racial theory in America including surveys and papers from the Amistad Research Center, 1943-1970. Includes audio recordings, case studies and community self-surveys, photographs and posters.
SocIndex with Full Text The index features more than 1,300,000 records with subject headings from a 15,600 term sociology-specific thesaurus designed by expert lexicographers. This product also contains informative abstracts for more than 620 "core" coverage journals dating back to 1895. In addition, this file provides data mined from more than 500 "priority" coverage journals as well as over 1,390 "selective" coverage journals. Further, extensive indexing for books, monographs, conference papers, and other sources is included. Contains full text for 242 "core" coverage journals dating back to 1895, and 72 "priority" coverage journals. This database also includes full text for 547 books and monographs, and full text for 6,711 conference papers.
Women's Studies International Covers the core disciplines in Women’s Studies to the latest scholarship in feminist research. Supports curriculum development in the areas of sociology, history, political science & economy, public policy, international relations, arts & humanities, business and education. Includes journals, newspapers, newsletters, bulletins, books, book chapters, proceedings, reports, theses, dissertations, NGO studies, Web sites & Web documents, and grey literature. Coverage: Covers issues in women's studies including feminist theory and history, family, mental & physical health, prejudice & gender discrimination, law & legislation, employment etc. Time Span:1972 to present; quarterly updates.

Database Finder and Journal Finder are your portals to research databases and electronic journals.

Databases are subscription resources that bring articles from a variety of magazines and/or journals into one place with a sophisticated search engine. Many of the databases allow you to read the entire article online. Consult Database Finder for the full list of available subject databases. Remember also that with EBSCOhost and ProQuest, you can choose from a list of databases and search all of them at once.

Citation Finder is an additional resource to help find specific articles.

The UM Libraries subscribe to over 300 databases!!! The ones listed here are most useful education databases where you'll be able to find information on your topics. See the Supplemental Databases tab for a fuller list of related subject databases.

African American Music Reference A collection of online reference books, biographies, chronologies, sheet music, images, lyrics, liner notes and discographies related to the history of African American music in all its guises: spirituals, jazz, blues, civil rights songs, hip hop and more.
Black Drama: Second Edition Black Drama, now in its expanded second edition, contains the full text of more than 1,200 plays written from the mid-1800s to the present by more than 200 playwrights from North America, English-speaking Africa, the Caribbean, and other African diaspora countries. Many of the works are rare, hard to find, or out of print. James Vernon Hatch, the playwright, historian, and curator of the landmark Hatch-Billops Collection, is the projects editorial advisor. More than 40 percent of the collection consists of previously unpublished plays by writers such as Langston Hughes, Ed Bullins, Willis Richardson, Amiri Baraka, Randolph Edmonds, Zora Neale Hurston, and many others.
Criminal Justice Abstracts Criminal Justice Abstracts, formerly produced by Sage Publications, includes bibliographic records covering essential areas related to criminal justice and criminology. The increasing globalization of criminology is reflected in Criminal Justice Abstracts' coverage of hundreds of journals from around the world. Do not attempt to search on authors by truncating the first name. Last, F? will often result in zero hits. Try searching on Last or Last, First
Family & Society Studies Worldwide A primary family studies resource, Family & Society Studies Worldwide provides more than one million citations and abstracts to professional journals, books, book chapters, conference papers, theses & dissertations, websites & internet documents, selected popular literature, government reports, statistical documents, working papers, and unpublished material. This database is a compilation of 4 database files: Family & Society Studies; Australian Family & Society Abstracts; National Clearinghouse on Family Violence, Health Canada; and U.S. Military Family Resource Center Documents Database. Dates of coverage are 1970 to the present.
Family Studies Abstracts Family studies database comprised of 45,000 entries, covering such areas as marriage, divorce, and family therapy.
GenderWatch Full text database comprised of 175 titles, primarily of the many ongoing periodicals that deal with gender issues, including academic and scholarly journals, regional publications, magazines, newspapers, newsletters, booklets and reports. Subject areas covered include: government, history and politics, lesbian and gay studies, women's studies, and other humanities and social sciences disciplines. Dates of coverage of some publications are 1970 to the present.
LGBTQ+ Source Full text for hundreds of the most important and historically significant LGBT journals, magazines and regional newspapers including The Advocate, Gay Parent Magazine, Girlfriends, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian & Gay Studies, James White Review, ISNA News, Ladder, Lesbian Tide, New York Blade, ONE, Tangents, and many more. LGBT Life with Full Text also contains many full-text monographs and books including Classics in Lesbian Studies, Gay Science: The Ethics of Sexual Orientation Research, Handbook of Research with Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Populations, Queer Theory & Social Change, and more. Additionally, all relevant bibliographic data from NISC's Sexual Diversity Studies is also included. Indexes and abstracts data from more than 80 GLBT-specific core periodicals, over 70 priority periodicals, and over 5,000 select titles. Very multi-disciplinary, with subject areas in social sciences, humanities, and science and medicine. Current coverage of most sources, as well as deep backfiles for key publications.
Gale Literature Criticism Electronic version of 12 titles in Gale's popular Literature Criticism reference series, including Contemporary Literary Criticism, Twentieth Century Literary Criticism, Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism, Shakespearean Criticism, Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800, Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism, Poetry Criticism, Short Story Criticism, and Drama Criticism.
Nation Digital Archive The Nation is America's oldest weekly magazine and one if its premier journals of opinion since its inception in 1865. The Nation has long bee regarded as one of the country's definitive journalistic voices of writing on politics, culture, books and the arts and continues to stand as the independent voice in American journalism. This database contains indexing & abstracting and full text for the complete archive of The Nation beginning with its first issue in 1865 through to the present.
New Republic Archive The New Republic, founded in 1914, presents insights from a variety of viewpoints on topics such as politics, foreign policy, culture, current events, the arts, and much more. The New Republic Archive contains more than 4,550 issues, with coverage dating back to 1914. Do not attempt to search on authors by truncating the first name. Last, F? will often result in zero hits. Try searching on Last or Last, First.
North American Theatre Online North American Theatre Online is a comprehensive reference work covering all aspects of the Canadian and American Theatre. It includes some 40,000 pages of major reference materials, together with records to approximately 30,000 plays, 57,000 people, 5,400 theatres, 22,000 productions, and 2,500 production companies. Each year we'll add more than 20,000 new records. The collection also includes approximately 10,500 images, playbills, postcards, scrapbooks and other resources. Through this interface, one can also search Black Drama, Twentieth Century North American Drama, Asian American Drama, North American Women's Drama, and Latino Drama.
ProQuest Criminal Justice Periodicals Full-text coverage for 45 of the titles most frequently accessed by criminal justice researchers, and complete indexing and abstracts for another 140 relevant U.S. and international journals. All criminal justice topics including corrections administration, law enforcement, social work, industrial security, drug rehabilitation, and criminal and family law.
Race Relations Abstracts Includes bibliographic records covering essential areas related to race relations, including ethnic studies, discrimination, immigration studies, and other areas of key relevance to the discipline. Records are selected from many of the top titles within the discipline, including Race, Ethnicity & Education and Ethnic & Racial Studies. This resource does not contain ISBNs.
Urban Studies Abstracts Urban Studies Abstracts covers urban affairs, community development, urban history, and other areas of relevance to the discipline of urban studies. The index contains 40,000 records from a variety of key sources, with coverage back to 1973.
Violence & Abuse Abstracts Database of 35,000 records that cover the subject of violence and abuse, including such areas as family violence, sexual assault, and emotional abuse.

Reload Button

Doing research off-campus? Try out the UMD Libraries reload button! Add the button to your browser's bookmark toolbar (see instructions below), and whenever you come across a journal you think you should be able to access, click the button to reload the page through the UMD Libraries proxy.

Firefox:
Drag the button to the bookmarks toolbar or right click and select the "Bookmark This Link" option.

Chrome or Safari:
Drag the button to the bookmarks toolbar. If the bookmarks toolbar isn't visible, press Ctrl + Shift + B (in Chrome).

Internet Explorer:
Right click the button and choose the "Add to favorites..." option. You may get a warning about adding unsafe links. While it's good practice to be wary, we believe this link is safe.

*Note: Reloading the page through the proxy still won't give you access if it's a resource we don't subscribe to. To verify access, look up the journal or database in the A to Z list.

What if there is no full text?

1st Option:
Use journal finder to search for the journal.
2nd Option: Request article from another library
This tutorial will assist you in using Inter Library Loan to request the article.

Ask Us or Report a Problem

Get your research questions answered through chat, email, phone, drop in at the information desk or make an appointment.

Or, Report a Problem accessing a database or an e-journal.