a research database

Explore millions of high-quality primary sources and images from around the world, including artworks, maps, photographs, and more.

Explore climate change issues through a variety of media types

• Part of Journal of Strategic Security, Vol. 13, No. 4, Climate Change and Global Security (2020)
• Part of Pew Research Center
• Part of The Climate Crisis and Other Animals, 2024, pp. 89-122 (34 pages)
• Part of Street Art Graphics on JSTOR
• Part of Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
• Part of The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Summer 2023)
• Part of Subjunctive Aesthetics: Mexican Cultural Production in the Era of Climate Change, 2024
• Part of ODI
• Part of National Civic Review, Vol. 112, No. 1 (Spring 2023)
• Part of Refuge in a Moving World: Tracing refugee and migrant journeys across disciplines, 2020
• Part of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Harness the power of visual materials—explore more than 3 million images now on JSTOR.

Enhance your scholarly research with underground newspapers, magazines, and journals.

Explore collections in the arts, sciences, and literature from the world’s leading museums, archives, and scholars.

Database Search

What is Database Search?

Harvard Library licenses hundreds of online databases, giving you access to academic and news articles, books, journals, primary sources, streaming media, and much more.

The contents of these databases are only partially included in HOLLIS. To make sure you're really seeing everything, you need to search in multiple places. Use Database Search to identify and connect to the best databases for your topic.

In addition to digital content, you will find specialized search engines used in specific scholarly domains.

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A-Z Databases

Find the best library databases for your research.

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• A-Z Databases by Title A complete list of UCLA's database subscriptions.
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Research Help

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New / Trial Databases

The following databases are newly acquired or being evaluated for a future subscription.

Compiles archival collections housed across the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. Content ranges from zines, newspapers and ephemera, to oral histories, films and photographs. Grassroots materials produced by left-wing organizations and underrepresented groups are presented alongside government records and mainstream media to showcase the key social, cultural, and political concerns of the decade.

Founded in 1925 in Moscow and in print until its closure in 1941, 30 Dnei was an illustrated Soviet literary journal featuring fiction, essays, and poetry. It was most famous for the serialized publications of such Soviet literary sensations as Il’f and Petrov’s The Twelve Chairs and The Golden Calf.

Several collections focusing on the interaction between American Indians and the U.S. government in the 19th and 20th Centuries, focusing on the 19th Century Indian Removal from 1832-1840, the U.S. Army and American Indians in the years from the 1850s-1890s, including detailed coverage of Indian Wars. The featured collections on the 20th Century are Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and records from the Major Council Meetings of American Indian Tribes.

A wide range of 19th and 20th century material, including immigration records, papers of major historical figures (Thomas A. Edison, Robert La Follette, Supreme Court justices), major organizations (Vietnam War, Japanese American War Relocation Authority, Students for a Democratic Society) and much more.

Online collection for the study of dress and costume history, film and theatre costume, and costume design and construction. Contains e-books, reference works, and more. Includes The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Film and Television Costume Design . Part of Bloomsbury Fashion Central.

Bloomsbury History: Theory and Method is an educational resource dedicated to historiography and the examination of historical theory and methods using a global approach. Discover 134 exclusive articles by authors based in 25 different countries, a 4-volume major reference work on the global history of historiography and 61 eBooks.

This interface allows the user to search various Brepolis Latin full-text databases simultaneously, namely the Library of Latin Texts, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Archive of Celtic-Latin Literature and the Aristoteles Latinus Database.

An English translation of Brockelmann's famous Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur (GAL). Brockelmann's work offers bio-bibliographic information about works written in Arabic and their authors, with an emphasis on the classical period.

Includes NAACP Papers, federal government records, organizational records, and personal papers regarding the 20th Century Black Freedom Struggle. The collections in this category include documentation on the major events of the civil rights era, such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Freedom Rides, March on Washington, Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Selma to Montgomery March, and other events spanning the full 20th Century.

Provides access to a series of databases with full-text content of Arabic scientific conferences, dissertations, and academic journals from 1921 to present day. Includes the following: EduSearch, HumanIndex, IslamicInfo, AraBase, EcoLink, and Mandumah Dissertations.

Demonstrates how society has interacted with and regarded individuals considered to have disabilities historically. Materials in this collection include books, pamphlets, periodicals, and manuscripts. Note: this database contains a content advisory . 

docLogica is a comprehensive, searchable database of disease characteristics and test accuracies. Users must register an account using their UCLA email address.

UC-wide trial to selected History Vault modules, including content derived from primary source digitized microfilm that is cross-searchable. Modules include Civil Rights and the Black Freedom Struggle; Southern Life, Slavery, and the Civil War; American Indians and the American West; American Politics and Society; International Relations and Military Conflicts; Women's Studies; Workers, Labor Unions, and Radicals; Latinx History; Revolutionary War and Early America. Alternative older interface portal for History Vault also available through 1/8/2025.

A detailed view of U.S. foreign relations during the period from the years immediately before the outbreak of World War I through the end of the Vietnam War.

OnArchitecture is an online library of architecture-related videos. OnArchitecture features streaming interviews with contemporary architects from around the world. The site also features video tours of important contemporary projects by many of the interview subjects.

Full page and article images with searchable full text from November 1950 to 2016.

Consists of nine modules: Slavery and the Law; Slavery in Antebellum Southern Industries; records focused on the Slave trade and other legal issues pertaining to slavery; four modules of Southern Life and African American History, 1775-1915, Plantation Records; a module on the Civil War entitled "Confederate Military Manuscripts and Records of Union Generals and the Union Army"; and Reconstruction and Military Government after the Civil War. Slavery and the Law features petitions on race, slavery, and free blacks that were submitted to state legislatures and county courthouses between 1775 and 1867.

Records of suffrage organizations and other women's rights organizations; personal papers of women's rights advocates, many of whom were involved in the suffrage movement; and records on women at work during World War II. There are five modules in this category. The largest module in this category consists of the records of the National Woman's Party, League of Women Voters, and the Women's Action Alliance.

Focus on workers and the American labor movement since the Civil War. Workers, Labor Unions, and the American Left in the 20th Century consists of federal government records and has strong coverage of strikes and radical labor unions in the first half of the 20th Century. Labor Unions in the U.S., 1862-1974: Knights of Labor, AFL, CIO, and AFL-CIO, consists of records sourced from the Wisconsin Historical Society, Catholic University of America, and the AFL-CIO.

Fact check: Correcting the record about the UC Berkeley Library’s long-term space plan

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A-z databases.

Find the best library databases for your research.

New / Trial Databases

The following databases are newly acquired or being evaluated for a future subscription.

History Vault content module American Indians and the American West from 1809-1971. Several collections focus on the interaction between American Indians and the U.S. government in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Notable 19th Century collections focus on Indian Removal from 1832-1840, the U.S. Army and American Indians from the 1850s-1890s, including detailed coverage of Indian Wars. 20th Century collections include Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and records from the Major Council Meetings of American Indian Tribes.

American Politics and Society is a wide-ranging database, focused on American Politics in the 19th and 20th centuries. The collections span records of Temperance organizations, 1830-1933; immigration records during the massive immigration wave from 1880-1930; legal collections from the Harvard Law School Library, including papers of three Supreme Court Justices; numerous collections on Progressive Era politics; and records from the Franklin D. Roosevelt White House through Gerald R. Ford presidencies. Notable events documented in this category include 20th century presidential elections; important legislation such as the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, Fair Labor Standard Act, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964; international events such as the Yalta Conference, the Berlin Airlift in 1948, the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, and the 1965 crisis in the Dominican Republic; and political events such as the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment, the New Deal, McCarthyism, and the Great Society.

This database offers the opportunity to study the most well-known and also unheralded events of the Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century from the perspective of the men, women, and sometimes even children who waged one of the most inspiring social movements in American history. This category includes NAACP Papers, federal government records, organizational records, and personal papers regarding the 20th Century Black Freedom Struggle. The collections in this category include documentation on the major events of the civil rights era, such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Freedom Rides, March on Washington, Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Selma to Montgomery March, and other events spanning the full 20th Century.

Content spans 1911-1975, offering a detailed view of U.S. foreign relations. Provides an excellent view of U.S. international relations during these important years, and also offers detailed information on the countries in which the U.S. diplomatic or military officials were stationed, making these collections an excellent source for studies of individual countries or regions of the world. Also covers the British Foreign Office, with documentation on events such as World War I, World War II, and Vietnam War battles; and on international diplomatic events such as the Yalta Conference, the Potsdam Conference, the 1952 Treaty of Peace with Japan, Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, Nixon’s trip to China in 1972, and Henry Kissinger's Shuttle Diplomacy to the Middle East, 1973-1975.

This database contains two modules, Latino Civil Rights during the Carter Administration: Records of the White House Office of Hispanic Affairs (1979-1981) and Bexar Archives: Colonial Archives of Texas during the Spanish and Mexican Periods, 1717-1836. The events documented in the Carter Administration collection that are noted in the timeline are general events from the presidency of Jimmy Carter such as the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, the 1980 presidential election. Events documented in the Bexar Archives include Gutierrez-Magee invasion of 1812-1813, the battle of Medina in 1813, the Champ D'Asile incident in 1818, Dr. Long's expedition in 1819, the coming of Moses Austin in 1820, the Mexican independent regime in 1821, the Fredonian Rebel lion in Nacogdoches in 1827, and, finally, the independence of Texas in 1836.

Consists of 26 collections from the holdings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, the first North American historical society and the first library to devote its primary attention to collecting Americana. The collections digitized focus on the Colonial Era, the Revolutionary War, and the Early National Period, with some collections extending into the Civil War era. Collections include Pre-Revolutionary Diaries, 1635-1774, the Benjamin Lincoln Papers, Revere Family Papers, Elbridge Gerry Papers, and Artemas Ward Papers. Due to the primarily personal papers nature of the collections in this category, the only event currently identified is the Battle of Bunker Hill.

History Vault’s collections on Slavery and Southern plantations candidly document the realities of slavery at the most immediate grassroots level in Southern society, providing some of the most revealing documentation in existence on the functioning of the slave system. Ledgers, correspondence, petitions, photographs, diaries, legal documents, and other materials illuminate this large and momentous chapter in history by documenting the far-reaching impact of slavery on plantations, the American South, and the nation.

This History Vault module focuses on the fight for women’s voting rights through the records of the National Woman’s Party and personal papers of women involved in the voting rights effort. The National Woman’s Party Papers are one of the most valuable collections for understanding the fight for women’s suffrage. Collections from the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College collections focus on voting rights, national politics, and reproductive rights. The Margaret Sanger Papers also focus on reproductive rights. The collections in this subject area include documentation on events such as the founding of the National Woman’s Party, the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, legal cases involving Margaret Sanger and reproductive rights, and the passage in Congress of the Equal Rights Amendment.

Focuses on workers and the American labor movement since the Civil War as well as other progressive and radical social movements. Taken as a whole, this category documents the efforts of labor unions and other organizations to impact American and international politics. Notable collections are records of the Knights of Labor; the AFL, CIO, and AFL-CIO; Socialist Party of America, Students for a Democratic Society, Americans for Democratic Action, and the American Jewish Congress. Events documented in this category include major labor strikes such as the Pullman Strike of 1894, the 1912 Lawrence, Massachusetts textile strike, and the National railroad yardmen's strike; presidential elections; the 1955 merger of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO); the 1962 Port Huron Statement by Students for a Democratic Society; and anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, including those demonstrations organized by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, such as Operation Dewey Canyon III in 1971.

1864-2023.  Zoological Record is a database of animal biology with coverage beginning in 1864. It's considered a leading taxonomic reference source and unofficial register of animal names.

Subject Resources

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Reference management. Clean and simple.

The top list of academic research databases

2. Web of Science

5. ieee xplore, 6. sciencedirect, 7. directory of open access journals (doaj), get the most out of your academic research database, frequently asked questions about academic research databases, related articles.

Whether you are writing a thesis , dissertation, or research paper it is a key task to survey prior literature and research findings. More likely than not, you will be looking for trusted resources, most likely peer-reviewed research articles.

Academic research databases make it easy to locate the literature you are looking for. We have compiled the top list of trusted academic resources to help you get started with your research:

Scopus is one of the two big commercial, bibliographic databases that cover scholarly literature from almost any discipline. Besides searching for research articles, Scopus also provides academic journal rankings, author profiles, and an h-index calculator .

• Coverage: 90.6 million core records
• References: N/A
• Discipline: Multidisciplinary
• Access options: Limited free preview, full access by institutional subscription only
• Provider: Elsevier

Web of Science also known as Web of Knowledge is the second big bibliographic database. Usually, academic institutions provide either access to Web of Science or Scopus on their campus network for free.

• Coverage: approx. 100 million items
• References: 1.4 billion
• Access options: institutional subscription only
• Provider: Clarivate (formerly Thomson Reuters)

PubMed is the number one resource for anyone looking for literature in medicine or biological sciences. PubMed stores abstracts and bibliographic details of more than 30 million papers and provides full text links to the publisher sites or links to the free PDF on PubMed Central (PMC) .

• Coverage: approx. 35 million items
• Discipline: Medicine and Biological Sciences
• Access options: free
• Provider: NIH

For education sciences, ERIC is the number one destination. ERIC stands for Education Resources Information Center, and is a database that specifically hosts education-related literature.

• Coverage: approx. 1.6 million items
• Discipline: Education
• Provider: U.S. Department of Education

IEEE Xplore is the leading academic database in the field of engineering and computer science. It's not only journal articles, but also conference papers, standards and books that can be search for.

• Coverage: approx. 6 million items
• Discipline: Engineering
• Provider: IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)

ScienceDirect is the gateway to the millions of academic articles published by Elsevier, 1.4 million of which are open access. Journals and books can be searched via a single interface.

• Coverage: approx. 19.5 million items

The DOAJ is an open-access academic database that can be accessed and searched for free.

• Coverage: over 8 million records
• Provider: DOAJ

JSTOR is another great resource to find research papers. Any article published before 1924 in the United States is available for free and JSTOR also offers scholarships for independent researchers.

• Coverage: more than 12 million items
• Provider: ITHAKA

Start using a reference manager like Paperpile to save, organize, and cite your references. Paperpile integrates with PubMed and many popular databases, so you can save references and PDFs directly to your library using the Paperpile buttons:

Scopus is one of the two big commercial, bibliographic databases that cover scholarly literature from almost any discipline. Beside searching for research articles, Scopus also provides academic journal rankings, author profiles, and an h-index calculator .

PubMed is the number one resource for anyone looking for literature in medicine or biological sciences. PubMed stores abstracts and bibliographic details of more than 30 million papers and provides full text links to the publisher sites or links to the free PDF on PubMed Central (PMC)

10 Best Online Academic Research Tools and Resources

Every college student conducts research at some point. And professors have strong views on what counts as a credible academic resource. Choosing the wrong sources can hurt your grade.

So how can you conduct research efficiently while avoiding sleepless nights in the campus library? Online academic research tools make it easier to find reliable sources quickly.

Rather than pulling random facts from the internet — and running into problems with citations — college students need to know how to find credible sources and how to use online academic tools. Keep reading to learn how you can find the best credible sources for your college research needs.

Popular Online Programs

Learn about start dates, transferring credits, availability of financial aid, and more by contacting the universities below.

The 10 Best Academic Research Sources

What resources will point you toward reliable sources for your academic research? Rather than scrolling through pages of search results, turn to these academic resources when you need to find sources.

1. Google Scholar

Looking for an academic article, thesis , or abstract? Google Scholar should be your first stop. Google Scholar helps you find related works, locate full documents at your school library , and access scholarly research.

While Google created Google Scholar, it’s very different from a general online search. Google Scholar brings together academic articles and ranks them based on the authors, publication location, and citation record. That means the top results generally represent the most reliable scholarship on your topic.

For journal articles, books, images, and even primary sources, JSTOR ranks among the best online resources for academic research. JSTOR’s collection spans 75 disciplines, with strengths in the humanities and social sciences . The academic research database includes complete runs of over 2,800 journals.

And if you’re looking for images, turn to Artstor , which offers over 2.5 million images related to the arts, sciences, and literature. However, JSTOR is not an open-access database. That means you’ll need to log in through your university library, which typically includes off-campus access .

3. Library of Congress

As the largest library in the world, the Library of Congress is an amazing online resource for academic research. Students can search its collections to access digital resources, videos, audio recordings, photographs, and maps.

The library’s materials also include notated music, web archives, legislation, and 3D objects. You’ll find materials for almost any topic in its extensive collections. You can search historic American newspapers from 1777-1963 with the Chronicling America tool or look up pirate trials in another digital collection.

4. PubMed Central

The National Library of Medicine, part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, runs PubMed Central. Founded in 2000, the database includes academic scholarship dating back to the 18th century. The resource connects college students with life sciences and biomedical academic sources.

And as an open-access database, PubMed Central offers free access to scholarly literature. Today, PubMed Central has over 7 million full-text records, making it a great resource for students in the life sciences or medical fields.

5. Google Books

Whether you’re looking for a recent publication or an out-of-print book, there’s a good chance you’ll find it on Google Books. In 2019, Google announced that Google Books contains over 40 million books .

You can enter any search term to find books that contain matches. And you can download the full text of any book in the public domain — which includes 10 million titles. Make sure to check publisher and author information when using Google Books.

The site also includes reference pages that link to book reviews. Keep in mind that you’ll have more limited access to recent books. Still, Google Books is a great first step to find sources that you can later look for at your campus library.

6. Science.gov

If you’re looking for scientific research, Science.gov is a great option. The site provides full-text documents, scientific data, and other resources from federally funded research.

A U.S. government site, Science.gov searches more than 60 databases and 2,200 scientific websites. You’ll find over 200 million pages of research and development information, including projects funded by 14 federal agencies. Students in any STEM field can benefit from the resource.

7. Digital Commons Network

University librarians curate the Digital Commons Network, which connects students with peer-reviewed articles. The site’s other resources include dissertations, book chapters, conference proceedings, and working papers.

The Digital Commons Network includes scholarly work from diverse disciplines like architecture, business, education, law, and the sciences. You can also access humanities, social sciences, and engineering scholarship through the network.

8. ResearchGate

ResearchGate has been described as social networking for research scientists. But ResearchGate is also a great option to find open-access academic sources. Scholars upload their work to ResearchGate, which makes it available to the public for free.

Currently, over 20 million researchers around the world use the site, which contains over 135 million publications. College students looking for scientific research can often find resources on ResearchGate and even connect with scholars.

9. WorldCat

When you’re looking for library resources, WorldCat is one of the best tools. Connected to over 10,000 libraries, WorldCat is a database that allows you to search library collections.

The database lists books and articles available at your local libraries, making it easier to find materials that are not available online. In addition to books, WorldCat contains music, videos, audiobooks, and scholarly articles.

You can also find digital research materials, including photos. When you’re logged into WorldCat through your university library, you can also access full-text articles and other resources. Or you can use WorldCat to find sources to request through interlibrary loan.

10. Your University Library

When you’re conducting academic research, your university library can be one of your best resources. In addition to online databases, journal articles, and books, your campus library also has academic librarians who can point you to the best sources.

When you don’t know where to start, reach out to an academic librarian to learn more about your school’s research tools. Or use interlibrary loan to get a scanned copy of an article. Many of the campus library’s resources are available online, making them easy to access.

How to Find Credible Sources for Research

How can you find credible sources for research and avoid misinformation? Your instructor likely recommends avoiding general web content or Wikipedia.

Finding the most reliable websites for research starts with evaluating the website itself. Sites run by academic or government organizations rank high in reliability. Databases and specialized search engines can also provide good research sources.

Next, make sure you understand the source of the information and the process used to publish it. Scholarly articles and books that undergo peer review make for the best academic resources.

Finally, when in doubt, check with your instructor or an academic librarian. They can help point you to reliable sources or double-check sources you’re unsure about.

How to Access Academic Resources

Many sites offer open-access resources. That means anyone can access the materials. Other sites restrict what you can read. For example, you might find some blank pages when searching on Google Books because of copyright restrictions. And many academic articles are behind paywalls.

Fortunately, college students benefit from one of the best resources for conducting research: the university library. Your library likely subscribes to multiple academic databases and journals. If you run into a paywall, check whether your library offers access to the resource.

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