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Articles and databases
Learn where to find articles from high quality, academic journals on the library webpage, and how to discover these on databases.
Find articles on Library Search
- Use Library Search to read journal articles online if you know their title and / or author names.
- Use Find an eJournal, the library's A to Z of digital journals, to see which journals we hold online.
Key business database
- Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window
Key databases
- Web of Science Core Collection This link opens in a new window
- International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS) This link opens in a new window The International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS) is an essential online resource for social science and interdisciplinary research. IBSS includes journal articles and to books, reviews and selected chapters dating back to 1951. It is unique in its broad coverage of international material and incorporates over 100 languages and countries.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window JSTOR is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources.
- Overton This link opens in a new window NB: This database can be browsed on campus without signing into the Overton site. Off campus, users need to register on the Overton registration page with their @bristol.ac.uk email address. Overton allows users to discover policy documents in 180 countries and explore their links to each other and to the academic research that has informed them. Overton indexes work from governments, universities, IGOs, NGOs, research funders, publishers and think tanks to understand their role in the policymaking landscape. Users can track the evolution of ideas all the way from academic and think tank research to government reports and legislation.
- Project Muse This link opens in a new window Covers literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, etc. Contains current full text scholarly journals which cover these fields and a significant collection of recent scholarly books.
- Sage Research Methods This link opens in a new window Vast database of full-text handbooks, videos and case studies of qualitative and quantitative research methods. Also includes a research project planner, with step by step help on each stage of the research process, for all types of dissertation or research project.
- Scopus This link opens in a new window Scopus includes references to journal articles, conference proceedings and books relating to science, technology, medicine, social sciences and arts & humanities.
Databases for related disciplines
For topics with a multidisciplinary reach, you may need to search databases from related disciplines:. medicine, economics, policy studies, psychology, sociology. For example, you can use PubMed for medical anthropology.
If you need help on which databases to use for your research, please do get in touch!
- PubMed This link opens in a new window
PubMed contains references to journal papers from Medline and life sciences journals.
- Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new window International literature in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences.
- Anthropology Plus This link opens in a new window Anthropology Plus is the world's most comprehensive index of journal articles and edited works for: social, cultural, physical, biological and linguistic anthropology, ethnology, archaeology, folklore, material culture and interdisciplinary studies. It covers materials from the early 19th century to today.
Other useful databases
- EThOS (Electronic Theses Online Service) This link opens in a new window UK’s national thesis service providing records of all doctoral theses awarded by UK Higher Education institutions and free access to the full text of as many theses as possible. Please note: UK theses not available on EThOS can be requested via the Inter-Library Loan service.
- MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
- ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global This link opens in a new window Includes citations to dissertations and theses from 1861 to the present day. Full-text is available for most dissertations added since 1997. The official digital dissertations archive for the Library of Congress, it also includes UK & Ireland content.
Free online eJournal databases
- Open Library of Humanities This link opens in a new window
Why use articles?
Articles are published regularly in academic journals, also known as periodicals. These contain up-to-date and in-depth content for your assignments. They are peer-reviewed by experts to ensure that they are of high quality. For dynamic disciplines, by reading journal articles, you keep up to date with quick-paced research before it becomes incorporated in books.
Why use academic databases?
Use academic databases if you want to do a quick and thorough search for a topic across many digital journals and books. They will allow you to do a more in-depth and focused search compared with Library Search or Google. You won’t find these resources on free search engines like Google. You may need to search across multiple databases to find a broader range of literature.
Tips on using databases
Some databases include full-text versions of articles and others only have bibliographic details. When the full text is not available, try the Get It @Bristol Univ button to see if there is a link to the full text in the library.
Subject-specific database like Business Source Complete cover the most current and comprehensive bibliographies of research in specific discipliines.
Interdisciplinary databases, like Web of Science are excellent for finding materials when disciplines intersect within and across areas in science, social sciences, arts and the humanities.
Database research tutorial
A self-help tutorial on effective research with databases.
