General Databases vs Specialized Databases
General databases are databases that cover a wide variety of subjects. These are good to research topics that cover a variety of discipline or when you're first starting your research. Specialized databases, also called subject-specific, are databases that only cover, or specializes, one subject area. These databases may be smaller than the general database listed on the previous page, but they often give more accurate results because they only search in the disciplines you need. Some specialized databases can be broad; for example, cover science. Others can be very specific; for example, cover only chemistry.
- Australia & New Zealand Database **Full-text, academic journals locally published in Australia and New Zealand. Subjects cover major areas of study: uding business, science, technology, medical, social sciences, political science, and humanities.
- BASEBASE contains more than 130 million documents from more than 6,000 academic sources. The database is 60% open access (free), so there may be some things you cannot access. The database is provided by the Bielefeld University Library.
- BC Open Textbook CollectionFounded in 2012 with support of British Columbia Minister of Advanced Education, BCcampus currently has over 150 open access, college level textbooks.
- BookboonFree online textbooks for students that are focused and to the point. Written by highly respected professors from top universities in the world and cover topics such as economics, statistics, IT, engineering and natural science.
- Canadian Business & Current Affairs Database **A Canadian focus on current events, business, education, science and medicine, arts, law, academia, and lifestyles.
- Career and Technical Education **Research on accounting, auto mechanics, building trades, computing science, graphic design, healthcare, photography, sales and retail & more in the Vo/Tech curriculum for both students and instructors
- College Open TextbooksFree online and printable college textbooks from the College Open Textbooks Collaborative, a collection of twenty-nine educational non-profit and for-profit organizations, affiliated with more than 200 colleges.
- Continental Europe Database **Provides access to full-text academic journals locally published in European countries such as France, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, and Portugal.
- Cornell OpenCornell Open is a global open access portal for both new and classic out-of-print titles from the distinguished catalog of Cornell University Press.
- Digital Commons NetworkThe Digital Commons Network brings together free, full-text scholarly articles from hundreds of universities and colleges worldwide. Curated by university librarians and their supporting institutions, the Network includes a growing collection of peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, dissertations, working papers, conference proceedings, and other original scholarly work.
- Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)Explore over 10 million items from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States.
- Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)Collection of over 2,000 academic peer-reviewed books from 280 academic publishers across the world.
- Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)An online directory that indexes and provides access to quality open access to over a million peer-reviewed articles.
- East & South Asia Database **Full-text, academic journals locally published in the East and South Asian countries. Subjects cover major areas of study: uding business, science, technology, medical, social sciences, political science, and humanities.
- East Europe, Central Europe Database **Full-text, academic journals locally published in the East and Central Europe region. Subjects cover major areas of study: uding business, science, technology, medical, social sciences, political science, and humanities.
- eBooks Central **Collection from ProQuest providing access to authoritative ebooks from the world's top publishers on a range of subjects: arts, business management, education, general knowledge, health & medicine, history & political science, law, literature & language, religion & philosophy, science & technology, and social science.
- EBSCO Open DissertationsSearch thousands of free dissertations on nearly every subject, ranging from the 1800's to current.
- eLibrary: Academic **General reference collection of periodical and digital media content specifically tailored for K-12 schools and libraries of all kinds, covering a variety of subjects including business, education, general interest, health, language arts, sciences, social sciences, and many other curriculum-specific subject areas.
- eLibrary: Guided Research InterfaceProvides access to eLibrary's periodical and digital media collection through a user interface specifically designed for student researchers.
- eScholarshipOpen access journals from the University of California. Journals cover a wide range of topics.
- EThOS: E-Theses Online Service (British Library)Coverage: 1800 to date. Also searchable as part of EBSCO's Open Dissertations database. More than 480,000 titles included with links to the full text for over 100,000 dissertations.
- GALILEOGALILEO Open Learning Materials brings together open educational resources throughout the University System of Georgia, including open textbooks and ancillary materials.
- Google ScholarSearches academic publishers, professional societies and pre-print archives. A mixture of free and subscription material.
- GRAFTCustom Google Search that searches over 4,600 university repositories at once. Most results are fully available online for free.
- Harvard Digital CollectionsHarvard Digital Collections provides free, public access to more than 6 million objects digitized from our collections - from ancient art to modern manuscripts and audio visual materials.
- HathiTrust Digital LibraryA digital preservation repository that has a mixture of free and subscription documents. Select "Full View" to limit to open access only. Great place for old government publications.
- Independent Voices
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An open access collection of mid-20th-century underground and alternative press publications, including Common Sense, NARF Legal Review, and La Voz Nueva. - India Database **Full-text, academic journals published locally in India. Subjects cover major areas of study: uding business, science, technology, medical, social sciences, political science, and humanities.
- JorumThe UK's largest repository for discovering and sharing Open Educational Resources for for higher and further education and the Skills sector. Currently contains over 16,000 resources.
- JSTORY Open and FreeExplore open access journals, ebooks, images, and research reports on the JSTOR and Artstor platforms.
- JurnCustom Google Search to search millions of free academic articles, chapters and theses from a variety of publishers.
- Latin America & Iberian Database **Full-text, academic journals locally published in Latin American countries including: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela, Spain and Portugal. Subjects cover major areas of study: uding business, science, technology, medical, social sciences, political science, and humanities.
- Library of Congress Digital CollectionsBrowse and search through more than 500 digital collections from the Library of Congress covering nearly every subject.
- Library of Congress Open Access BooksOver 6,000 open access items from the Library of Congress. Most materials are from 2000 and later.
- LibreTextsClick on "Explore the Libraries" to select your topic and browse through hundreds of open textbooks and texts.
- Maps from the Library of CongressSearch nearly 19,000 online maps from the 1800's through 1960 digitized from the Library of Congress massive map collection. Maps will be added monthly until 2020, for a total of approximately 500,000.
- Mason OER Metafinder (MOM)Real-time federated search for OER content across multiple platforms.
- MERLOTMERLOT is curated collection of over 100,000 free and open online teaching resources from the California State University System. Use the search bar or browse by subject area.
- Middle East & Africa Database **Full-text, academic journals published in a number of Middle Eastern and African countries. Subjects cover major areas of study: uding business, science, technology, medical, social sciences, political science, and humanities.
- Milne Open TextbooksMilne Open Textbooks began as the project Open SUNY Textbooks: an open access textbook publishing initiative established by State University of New York libraries and supported by SUNY Innovative Instruction Technology Grants. This pilot initiative published high-quality, cost-effective course resources by engaging faculty as authors and peer-reviewers, and libraries as publishing service and infrastructure.
- National Academies Press EbooksContains ebooks on agriculture, behavioral and social sciences, biographies, biology and life sciences, computers and information technology, conflict and security issues, earth sciences, education, energy, engineering, environment, health, medicine, math, science, and much, much more!
- NDLTD Global ETD SearchSearch over 6 million electronic theses and dissertations contained in the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) archive:
- OAIsterOAIster is a union catalog of millions of record. Collection includes digitized books, journal articles, newspapers, manuscripts and more.
- OAPENOAPEN is dedicated to open access, peer-reviewed books. We work with publishers to build a quality-controlled collection of open access books and provide services for publishers, libraries, and research funders in the areas of hosting, deposit, quality assurance, dissemination, and digital preservation.
- OASISOpenly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS) is a search tool that aims to make the discovery of open content easier. OASIS currently searches open content from 115 different sources and contains 440,380 records.
- OER CommonsA massive collection of OERs divided by subject and grade levels. Includes over 40,500 college level resources, including textbooks.
- OER Knowledge CloudNot so much a collection as a massive OER search engine. All journal articles, reports, books and other items are fully searchable and either pulled from the source or link to it.
- Open Access ButtonThis search requires you to already have a citation, title, DOI, or URL before searching and scours the Internet looking for legal, open access versions of your requested article.
- Open Access Theses and DissertationsOATD.org aims to be the best possible resource for finding open access graduate theses and dissertations published around the world. Metadata (information about the theses) comes from over 1100 colleges, universities, and research institutions. OATD currently indexes 5,312,272 theses and dissertations.
- Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS)OASIS is a search tool that aims to make the discovery of open content easier. OASIS currently searches open content from 115 different sources and contains 440,380 records. From SUNY Geneseo's Milne Library.
- Open Michigan
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Find open educational resources, courses, data, and publications from the University of Michigan. - OpenStaxFree, peer-reviewed and developed textbooks. OpenStax is an initiative of Rice University and is made possible through the generous support of several philanthropic foundations.
- Open Textbook LibraryHosted by the University of Minnesota, the Open Textbook Library provides a growing catalog of free, peer-reviewed, and openly-licensed textbooks.
- Pressbooks DirectorySearch or browse over 5,000 books. Can limit searches by subject, language, last updated, word count, publisher, and more.
- Project GutenbergOver 46,000 free ebooks, most of which are out of copyright. Good place to find classics.
- Project Muuse Open Access ContentBrowse and search open access books and journals form academic publishers on the Project Muse platform.
- ProQuest Central **A cross-disciplinary research tool with 30 databases that can be searched together or individually.
- Public Video Online **Offers over 50,000 streaming videos on History, Science, Engineering, Health, Performing Arts, Religion, and films for research. Institutional access limited to school and public libraries.
- Radio GardenRadio Garden invites you to tune into thousands of live radio stations across the globe. By bringing distant voices close, radio connects people and places. From its very beginning, radio signals have crossed borders. Radio makers and listeners have imagined both connecting with distant cultures, as well as re-connecting with people from ‘home’ from thousands of miles away.
- Research Library **A mix of scholarly journals, trade publications, magazines, and other timely sources across the top 150 subject areas.
- SIRS Issues Researcher **Background and analysis on 350+ leading issues, providing pros and cons on social, scientific, health, historic, economic, political, and global issues
- Smithsonian Open AccessDownload, share, and reuse millions of the Smithsonian’s images—right now, without asking. Contains more than 3.9 million 2D and 3D digital items from their collections—with many more to come. This includes images and data from across the Smithsonian’s 19 museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo.
- Turkey Database **Full-text, academic journals locally published in Turkey. Subjects cover major areas of study: business, science, technology, medical, social sciences, political science, and humanities.
- U.K. & Ireland Database **Full-text, academic journals locally published in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. Subjects cover major areas of study: business, science, technology, engineering, social sciences, education, and humanities.
- UN-iLibraryUN iLibrary is the comprehensive global search, discovery, and viewing source for digital content created by the United Nations. After selecting a result you want to read, click the "Reader" button to access the full text.
- unpaywallNot a true database, but this Firefox and Chrome extension helps you find legally uploaded scientific articles from authors, publishers, and repositories themselves.
- World Book Advanced **Premier resource for students and researchers at the university level with comprehensive reference tool that includes encyclopedia, multimedia, e-book, and primary source databases, fully integrated in a single search.
- The World FactbookProvides information on the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 267 world entities.
** Arkansas residents only
Some resources are subscription databases provided for free by the Arkansas State Library to Arkansas residents. This list may change as subscriptions to databases change. Make sure to check this list or the State Library for a current list of free subscription-based databases.
Guide owner: April Sheppard, Assistant Library Director, asheppard@astate.edu
