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Spark 001: Central Valley Stories (Trook)

Spring 2025

Why Use Databases? Some Quick Tips

Databases are powerful search tools that contain scholarly journals and articles plus much more! Here are some benefits of choosing a database over a library catalog or search engine like Google:

  • Each database is a curated set of documents organized so that we can retreive them easily.
  • Databases have subject terms to help you find articles about your topic!
  • Databases are tailored to meet your needs. Some databases contain resources related to a single field (e.g. PsyciNFO is for Psychology) but others cover a wide range of disciplines (e.g. Web of Science or Academic Search Complete).  

Many, if not most, of the databases you'll search for this project have powerful search features:

  • Publication date filter - limit your search to a particular date range
  • "Relevance" - this option usually brings up a pulldown menu that will give you the option to sort your search results by publication date ("newest first" - the most recently published will show up first in the list of results; "oldest first" - the oldest article will show up first)
  • Full text - your search will be limited to only those articles that appear full-text in the database. NOT a good idea. Use "UC e-links" to find the full text of articles in other databases.

A-Z Databases (Search Widget)

For a known database, search the title in the dropdown menu: 

An icon of a magnifying glass with "A-Z" in the center

 

If you don't know the database you want, go to the A-Z Databases page and filter by Subject or search using a keyword.

Databases to Start With

In order to teach you about databases in general, we're going to use one database in particular: Academic Search Complete, the most popular database at UC Merced and many college and university libraries around the country.

Other popular general databases include:

Arts & Humanities Databases

The databases listed below have a Thesaurus or Subject Terms search option. You can also search by keyword, by the name of an artist, or the title of an artwork.

Film

Arts

Boolean Logic (Video Tutorial)

Check out this brief video (4:54) from Yavapai Community College to learn about using AND, OR, and NOT in your database searches.