Colwell Research Guide: Home

The databases listed on this page require a login. For access:

1. Go to your Atlas account and log in.
2. Click on the Search the Library link, under the "Courses" tab.
3. On the page that follows, click Databases A-Z or Databases by Subject.
4. Click on the name of the database, e.g. Academic Search Complete.

Note: If you do not access this guide through Atlas, you will be prompted for a Borrower ID and PIN when you click on the links to the databases

• Your Borrower ID is the number is your VID card, including the 'V'
• Your PIN is the last four digits of your VID

Remember that although many of the library databases provide MLA citations for electronic sources, it is your responsibility as a student to ensure that all of your citations are correct. 

Be sure to compare any database generated citations to the library's MLA guides online (link below), the official MLA Handbook (located at the second floor Reference Desk), or your Little Seagull Handbook.

Access Smartthing within Atlas.  Follow these steps:

1. Log in to Atlas
2. Go to the Courses tab
3. From the My Courses box, click on 'Tutoring (online)'

The following databases are a good place to start for scholarly journal articles.

Scholarly journals (also commonly referred to as refereed, academic or peer-reviewed) have:

• authors with advanced degrees in the subject
• a special review process called "peer review" in which the articles are reviewed by other experts
• original research on a topic
• extensive references to other sources on the topic
• technical language
• an audience of experts and students

Search the library catalog to find books or ebooks on your theory. 

When doing academic research, it is important to be able to figure out how to pick a database to use. Sometimes a professor will assign you a database, but other times you have to pick your own.

To do this,

• Display the list of library databases by subject. Most libraries have one.
• Think about how your topic might fit into the broad subject categories. There is often more than one subject you could pick.
• Display the list of databases in that particular category.
• Pick one.

Some things to think about when looking at a database

• What source types does it contain?
  • scholarly journal articles
  • overview articles from reference books
  • magazine articles
  • newspaper articles
  • videos
• What are its search features?
• Is the information recent or historical?

Global Newsstream is a database that contains many newspapers from around the country and the world, including some well-known ones like the Washington Post, New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

News articles are, of course, also available on the web. Some reasons to use the database instead are:

• a longer date range (web sites often only have the current week or so of news; the database goes back to the 1980s)
• free access through the library (many web sites charge for access)
• search multiple newspapers at the same time