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Databases
The University Libraries provide a wide variety of both general and subject-specific databases, many of which will support research in Library and Information Studies. If you're new to searching library literature, Library/Information Science & Technology Abstracts w/Full Text (LISTA) is a good place to start. LISTA indexes more than 600 journals, as well as books, research reports and proceedings. Subject coverage includes librarianship, classification, cataloging, bibliometrics, online information retrieval, information management and more. Coverage in the database extends back as far as the mid-1960s.
Below are direct links to a variety of databases of interest to GSLIS students. To see a full list of URI databases and their descriptions, click on the first link, All Reference Databases by Title.
Any time you attempt to access the databases from outside the URI Libraries, you'll be prompted to provide your e-Campus user name and Brightspace/email password.
- Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts with Full Text (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new window
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- What’s included? More than 600 periodicals, plus books, research reports and proceedings. Subject coverage includes librarianship, classification, cataloging, bibliometrics, online information retrieval, information management and more.
- What dates are covered? Mid-1960's - Present.
- Library Literature & Information Science Retrospective: 1905-1983 (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new window
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- What’s included? Citations to articles, book reviews, books, and book chapters in library and information studies, as well as citations to library school theses. Also includes full text from 69 years of the Wilson Library Bulletin.
- What dates are covered? 1905 AD - 1983 AD.
- ERIC (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new window
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- What’s included? Citations to and abstracts of journals and other materials in education. Updated monthly.
- What dates are covered? 1966 - Present.
- ERIC (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
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- What’s included? Citations to and abstracts of journals and other materials in education, including teacher education, testing, measurement, and evaluation. Updated monthly.
- What dates are covered? 1966 - Present.
- Education Index Retrospective: 1929-1983 (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new window
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- What’s included? Indexing of over 800 periodicals in education.
- What dates are covered? 1929 - 1983
- Academic Search Complete (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new window
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- What's included? Citations to and full text of over 8,500 journals and magazines, including more than 7,300 peer-reviewed journals. Covers a wide range of academic subjects including the arts, humanities, social sciences, sciences, technology, and more.
- What dates are covered? Coverage varies, but generally covers the mid 1990s - present. Updated daily.
- ProQuest One Business This link opens in a new window
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- What’s included? Comprehensive business library containing millions of full-text items across scholarly and popular periodicals, newspapers, market research reports, dissertations, books, videos, and more.
- CiteSeerX Scientific Literature Digital Library This link opens in a new window
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- What's included? Full-text index of computer science research articles. Allows for citation searching and linking.
- What else should I know? Offered by the NEC Laboratories America and Penn State’s School of Information Sciences and Technology.
- Digital Library of Information Science & Technology
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"DLIST is a cross-institutional, subject-based, open access digital archive for the Information Sciences, including Archives and Records Management, Library and Information Science, Information Systems, Museum Informatics, and other critical information infrastructures." - E-LIS: Eprints in Library and Information Science
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"Established in 2003, E-LIS is an international Open Archive for Library and Information Science (LIS). Over 11,500 papers have been archived to date. It is freely accessible, aligned with the Open Access (OA) movement and is a voluntary enterprise."
- Guide to Computing Literature (ACM) This link opens in a new window
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- What’s included? A collection of of more than 750,000 citations and abstracts from 3,000+ publishers, including works published by ACM and other publishers. Coverage includes books, journal articles, conference proceedings, theses, dissertations, and technical support. Citations for all ACM published works are included in the Guide.
- O'Reilly Online Learning This link opens in a new window
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- What’s included? Technology and business ebooks, case studies, videos, and learning paths.
- What else should I know? At the "Welcome! Get instant access through your library" screen, select "Not listed? Click here." Then enter your uri.edu email address. You will be granted temporary access from the device and browser used that will expire after 3 days, and you will be emailed an invitation to create a permanent O'Reilly account. You are not required to create a permanent account unless you want to use personalized features or the smart phone app version. If you have previously created a permanent O'Reilly account, click on the link labeled "Already a user? Click here." If you are a URI guest, use the email address safari@uri.edu. For help, contact customercare@oreilly.com.
- To create permanent links to content on O'Reilly, follow these instructions.
- Oxford English Dictionary This link opens in a new window
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- What’s included? Electronic version of the Oxford English Dictionary with search capabilities.
- Teacher Reference Center (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new window
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- What’s included? Provides citations and abstracts for more than 270 of the most popular teacher and administrator journals and magazines to assist professional educators.
Other Helpful Databases
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window
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- What’s included? Archival journal collections in many disciplines, scholarly e-books, images, and primary source materials from institutions worldwide.
- What else should I know? Many journals in JSTOR have an embargo (called the "Moving Wall") on their most recent articles, generally ranging from 3-5 years. Other databases will provide more current results.
- Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
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- What’s included? Full-text current and archival articles from 500+ scholarly journals from major university presses covering literature and criticism, history, performing arts, cultural studies, education, philosophy, political science, gender studies, and more. Updated continually.
- ScienceDirect (Elsevier) This link opens in a new window
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- What’s included? A collection of journals from the publisher Elsevier and its affiliates. Journals may be browsed or searched by keyword. Access to the full content of articles from selected journals is available to URI users. Availability is indicated by a green icon. Other articles may be requested via Interlibrary Loan.
- What dates are covered? 1995 - Present.
- Scopus (Elsevier) This link opens in a new window
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- What’s included? Multidisciplinary abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature with tools to track, analyze, and visualize article and literature use. Includes journal articles, books, book series, conference papers, and more. Alternative to Web of Science. Indexes close to 35,000 titles.
- UNdata This link opens in a new window
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- What’s included? The United Nations Data Access System, providing access to current, relevant and reliable statistics for free. Includes official statistics produced by countries, as well as estimates and projections. The domains covered are agriculture, education, energy, industry, labor, national accounts, population and tourism.
- What else should I know? Produced by United Nations Statistics and Population Divisions as well as other United Nations agencies.
- Web of Science Core Collection (Clarivate) This link opens in a new window
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- What's included? Access to Science Citation Index (1900-present), Social Sciences Citation Index (1900-present), Arts & Humanities Citation Index (1975-present), Emerging Sources Citation Index (2005-present), Conference Proceedings Citation Index (1900-present), and Book Citation Index (2005-present). Contains citations to articles from over 10,000 of the most prestigious, high impact research journals in the world.
- What else should I know? Searching by cited reference allows the user to uncover the research that influenced an author’s work or to navigate forward in time to discover a paper’s impact on current research.
Finding Articles in Journals
Finding articles for your LIS research shouldn't be a "needle in a haystack" experience. Use the library databases! Databases are electronic indexes leading you to citations, abstracts, and very often the full text of articles. New to database searching? Learn more about finding journal articles with this handy user guide.
Comparing Sources: Scholarly, Professional, Trade, and Popular
- Comparing Sources: Scholarly, Professional, Trade, and PopularThis guide will help you evaluate articles and determine whether they are scholarly, professional, trade, or popular.
Citation Managers
RefWorks and Zotero are reference managers with some bonus features. URI pays for your access to RefWorks; Zotero is a "freemium" product, meaning you get a certain amount of storage for free, but once you hit the limit (300 MB), you will need to pay for additional storage.