Choosing an appropriate database, or periodical index, is an essential part of research. How are you going to choose among those available from the Library?
Library databases organize particular types of materials. Some index citations are for government documents, conference proceedings, book reviews, or magazine and journal articles. Others, like your library catalog, focus on a particular collection. Knowing what type of information you are looking for will make your selection easier.
Most library databases specialize in a particular subject. There are databases for education, business, biographies, history, medical, and legal - virtually every academic discipline! Other databases are more general or multi-disciplinary, indexing popular and scholarly periodicals from a wide variety of topics.
The library subscribes to a number of databases, some very general while others cover very specific fields. Most paper topics are covered in the NSCC databases under"Library Resources" on the NSCC Library website. The "Top 10 databases" are good starting places for your research. Remember: always look in more than one database, because each one indexes different periodicals.
Think carefully about your topic and match it to the best database.
| For articles about: | Use a: | Such as: |
| Censorship | General database | Academic Onefile |
| Abortion | General database | Academic Search Premier |
| Medical issues on Abortion | Health database | Health Source |
| Legal issues on abortion | Legal database | LexisNexis |
| Historic issues on abortion | History database | U.S. History in Context |