History - HSTA 200 (19th Century British Culture): Historian as Detective: Library Databases

The MSUB Library subscribes to many databases, which contain thousands of full-text, scholarly articles. Different databases have different appearances and user interfaces. In general, most offer similar search functionality.

Spend some time brainstorming keywords & search terms to improve your search results. When you find a good article, look at its Reference list or Works Cited page because these can often lead you to other good sources. 

Keyword searching is the default in  most databases.

• Use important nouns as search words
• Try using synonyms of your search words to increase results
• Avoid common words: "a," "an," "the," "to," "of," etc.
• Use double quotations around search terms to search for an exact phrase. Example: "suffrage movement"

Power Search simultaneously searches the majority of library databases and can be used to find scholarly articles. After you enter your search terms, narrow your search to "peer-reviewed journals" to focus on scholarly material. You can also narrow by date, full-text online, and resource type (i.e. newspaper, article, dissertations, etc). Also experiment with putting your search terms in quotations marks:  "Circus Freaks."

Search history databases individually by using the drop down box below: