Use the link below to find databases which are most helpful for your subject area (English, Psychology, History, Biology...etc.)
Reference book articles, or academic encyclopedias, are a great place to start. Go to reference works for background knowledge, theoretical terms, an overview of the history of a subject or issues, key players - and leads to more information.
You can search the library's main search box, Holman Library One Search, and limit to Reference Entries, with such overview and background info that reference books are known for. Or, you can try searching Gale Virtual Reference Library (also called Gale Ebooks).
The screenshot below shows a list of search results in this database. You can see it shows many articles with the same title; notice the larger book each article comes from; these are all different subject-specific encyclopedias. Each article, though with exact or similar names, might discuss the same topic differently, from a different point of view, based on the overarching subject of the book.
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Books are a great resource when you need more in-depth coverage of a topic. The library has so many print books that you can check out or use in the library; however, there are even more you can access electronically, through the library's databases. One nice thing about print and ebooks is that you don't have to read the whole thing! Consider a chapter or a short article from a book.
Read books, book chapters, and essays in anthologies for:
Search for print books, ebooks, using simple search terms.
Or, if you know you want to search just for ebooks - which allow you to carry out word searches, copy and paste text directly from the page, and print or download content, as well as getting an MLA or APA citation - try using the databases below to search by keyword, title, author, or topic.
Through the library's databases, you have access to thousands of newspaper articles.
You can access newspaper articles in many of the library's databases, but the ones featured here are a great place to start!
When searching for newspaper articles in these databases, but sure to limit to them under Source Type. This is always on the Advanced Search option, but it's also usually off to the side of the results, on the menu where you can limit by date, subject, language, and more.
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Image source: all photos taken by GRC librarians
You can access magazine articles through the library's databases.
Try searching for magazine articles in the databases below. Search by title, author, or simply enter in search terms. Once you see a list of results be sure to....
Image source: all photos take by GRC librarians
The library's databases have access to many streaming films, DVDs, and different audio sources.
When searching in One Search, from the library's homepage, just limit to Audio and/or Video on the menu to the left, under Source Type as shown in the image below.
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Scholarly articles are often written by scholars or researchers for other scholars or researchers, in order to present original research. These articles are published in journals, and some of these journals even undergo an extra editing process called the peer-review process.
Try searching the following databases for scholarly articles - limiting to Journals and/or Academic Journals on the menu to the left of your results.
Note: The video linked here was created by a GRC librarian and may take a moment or two to load!
A search technique using AND/OR/NOT (see the online tutorial for more information); used in the library catalog, databases, and Google.
Boolean Operators are a simple way of controlling your search results. You can narrow a search by using AND, you can broaden your search by using OR, and you can narrow your search by excluding certain words using NOT. You can use these tools in the library's catalog, databases, and even in Google.
In the image below, you can see the built-in Boolean operators just next to the search box. These are always found in the advanced search page and can be used to combine terms and get to the information you need.
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View the video below to see how these operators work to better help you find what you need
