If you are looking for ARTICLES on your topic, you have three options:
1. Databases Search one of the Library's 350+ databases (Preferred way!) Allows you to focus on a discipline such as management, nursing, or medicine
2. Discover@MU A good starting point, provides you a broad search over many topics and includes books, journal articles, newspaper articles, audio & video files. Searches across the MU Library collections.
3. Google Scholar Great for looking for very specific or hard to find topics. Scholar searches the full text of articles.
If you have an article citation use this link to find the full-text or print copy of article.
The databases listed above will lead you to articles. If you do not find the html or pdf full-text of the article in the database, just click the "Findit@MU" button next to the article citation. The article will display if available electronically. If there is no online access, you'll be given the opportunity to look for a print copy in the Library Catalog. If the article is not available online or in print, you can request the article via Interlibrary Loan.
Interlibrary loan (ILL) is free to you as the library picks up the charges. The service is all online and delivery is usually within 2 business days.
A database can be thought of as a specialized search engine.
Technically, a database is an online index to magazine and journal articles, book chapters, etc. Databases often provide access to the full-text of articles.
Convenient and a Time Saver---you would otherwise have to look through each issue of a magazine and journal for articles on your topic. A database scans thousand of issues to find articles that match your topic. It shows exactly which issue has the article(s) on your topic.
Citation: The citation will provide information (author, title, journal title, volume, page, etc.) to find the article. Example: Snyder, C.R. "Hope and Academic Success in College." Journal of Educational Psychology 94.4 (2002) 820-26.
Abstract: A summary of the article
Full-Text: Sometimes the database will have the full-text or a link to the complete text of the article.
Use a database to find article information on your topic. After retrieving article citations, use Findit@MU to determine whether the article(s) is available fulltext online or in print. Use Interlibrary Loan to obtain copies of articles from other libraries.
For HP3900, the big databases to use are PubMed, Scopus, Discover@MU (searches both journal articles and books). There are lots more databases to pursue depending on your topic. Check them out on the MU Libraries Databases by Subject page.
An easy way to select the best database is to use the Subject Databases pages. On the Subject databases page choose your subject area and click and you will get a list of databases that cover your subject.
The following multidisciplinary databases have both popular and scholarly articles and are good places to start your research:
The following multidisciplinary database has only scholarly articles:
The following specialized databases have only scholarly articles:
The following mulitidisciplinary database only includes popular articles: