Databases

Find articles using databases

Databases make it easier to find and access peer-reviewed research articles in a particular subject area and many have additional features to discover and save related material. If you know the name of the database you want, use the Library Search to find it.

Browse a list of subject-specific databases.

Popular databases

The most popular databases are:

• Dimensions (articles, grants, patents, clinical trials, datasets, policy documents, technical reports)
• EBSCO including CINAHL (nursing and health), Communications and Mass Media, Business Source Premier (business and related subjects)
• Lexis Library (law)
• Ovid including Embase, Psycinfo, Global Health, Medline (health, medicine, psychology and related subjects)
• Oxford Reference Online (language dictionaries, subject dictionaries and reference works across all subjects)
• Proquest (arts, social sciences, dissertations, newspapers)
• Scopus (arts, social sciences, natural sciences, engineering, health)
• Web of Science (arts, social sciences, physical sciences)
• WGSN (World Global Style Network: fashion and style).

How to use databases

You can search for articles using keywords, authors and subjects. The database will provide a list of results, and each result will have an abstract and publication details.

Use more than one database for a more thorough search. Each database covers a different range of journals.

Databases may provide a link to the article that you want. If not, search the library for the article as we may have electronic access to it.

It's worth checking the database help and guides, either in our subject-specific resources or in the database itself. They will give you a better understanding of how to get the best results from a search.

If you're researching a subject in depth, have a look at our literature searching advice.

Diversity issues of research databases

When you choose which databases to search, consider the geographical coverage and if there is inherent bias in their coverage of the literature, not just the subject scope or what type of documents they index.

For example, although databases such as Scopus and Web of Science are trying to increase their regional coverage, they still lack content from non-English language countries. Similarly, most of the top global publishers are based in Europe and North America, and editors of most leading journals are from those countries.

This lack of diversity in the scholarly publishing industry means that valuable research and perspectives from other countries and marginalised groups are often excluded and more difficult to discover.

In the subject databases lists, we have included some sources that cover literature from diverse backgrounds.