Electronic databases and printed indexes for French studies research

About databases

On this page I've listed the best databases to use for French studies research. The following comments refer to electronic databases; you should also look at my section on Printed indexes to literature further down this page.

Databases are indexes to published material on a topic. The main emphasis is on journal articles, but often they also index important chapters in edited books, conference proceedings and other sources.

Most databases will provide the full text of the articles either directly, or by linking you to the journal's website through the Library Catalogue. But not all the journals indexed by a particular database will be in the Barr Smith Library's collections. If you find an article that is important to you, and it isn't available in our Library either as an online subscription or in paper format, you can make use of our Document delivery service.

Electronic databases let you mark the results that you want to follow up, and many will let you email your marked results, and/or the full text of articles, to your own email address.

Not sure how to use a database to find information on your topic? I've provided simple, step-by-step instructions on my Literature search techniques pages.

And if you need some gentle persuasion to start using databases to find relevant information, listen to our podcast Make databases your friend.
Visit the Library podcasts page for full details of how to listen to the databases podcast and other podcasts about Library services.

Don't forget, though, that there are also printed bibliographic resources in the Barr Smith Library's Reference collection that you should use.

Electronic indexes to literature

 

MLA

Easily the best electronic database for our purposes, the MLA (Modern Language Association) International Bibliography is a subject index to journal articles and books on modern languages, literatures, folklore, and linguistics. It covers from 1925 onwards and contains over 1.7 million citations from more than 4,400 journals. The majority of records are from English-language publications, but at least sixty other languages are represented including French.
The database also has an identifiable subset of more than 77,000 records from JSTOR's Language and Literature Collection. The documents date back as far as 1881 and contain direct links to the full-text articles in JSTOR (see below).
MLA also indexes journals in areas related to literature such as Cultural studies, Film studies and Media.

 

 

Academic search premier

Indexes and provides abstracts of articles from over 8,500 journals. Of these, full text is provided for over 4,600 journals, of which more than 3,900 are peer-reviewed.
Coverage: social sciences, humanities, education, computer sciences, engineering, physics, chemistry, language and linguistics, arts & literature, medical sciences, ethnic studies. I've found the Academic Search Premier database to be prtty good for French research.

 

 

Academic OneFile

A collection of peer-reviewed, full-text articles in HTML and PDF format from more than 8,000 journals with extensive coverage of the physical sciences, technology, medicine, social sciences, the arts, theology, and literature. There's a reeasonable coverage of French literary journals such as: French forum, French review, French studies, Nineteenth-Century French Studies, Romanic review, and so on. The publisher maintains a complete listing of journals covered by Academic OneFile, with details of dates of coverage and full text availability.

 

 

JSTOR

Not strictly a database but a searchable collection from volume 1 onwards of over 270 core journal titles in many disciplines. I've had very good results using it to track down citations for specific articles when not all the details were known. Coverage extends to all volumes except for the last few years, so don't use it to find articles on very recent topics.
JSTOR citations can be exported in EndNote-compatible format [don't know about EndNote bibliographical software? - visit the EndNote page].
Note to my academic colleagues: JSTOR provides a stable URL for every article, which you can copy and paste into MyUni.

 

 

Periodicals index online (PIO)

Formerly called Periodicals Contents Index (PCI) this huge database indexes millions of articles published in the arts, humanities and social sciences over the past 300 years.
From the PIO results screen there is a link to Periodicals Archive Online which provides access to hundreds of online journals.

 

 

Web of Science

The Web of Science database includes the Arts & Humanities citation index and the Social sciences citation index from 1980 to date. Search by author, keyword or citation.
Web of science is useful for finding articles that have cited a given article, and so are likely to be on a related topic.

 

 

Scopus

A large database with an emphasis on science but which also indexes over 3500 arts and humanities peer-reviewed journal titles. Covers 1980 onwards for topic searching: from 1996 onwards allows cited reference searching to find articles that have cited a given article.
There's a useful series of interactive tutorials on how to search Scopus effectively.
Scopus has a free mobile app: Scopus Alerts (Lite) gives researchers mobile access to the Searching and Alerting features of Scopus. It's designed to eliminate the need for you to seek out a desktop or laptop computer while travelling, attending conferences or commuting to work. If you're a regular Scopus user, and you have an iPhone, you'll want to give this one a try. Before using the app, you need to visit the Scopus site and register using your University of Adelaide email address.

 

 

Libraries Australia (formerly called Kinetica)

Use this database to find which Australian libraries hold a particular book or journal.
Note: Use Advanced search and change all of these to exact match or starts with. Apply the Journals limit when searching for journals.
If you don't find the journal you are looking for in Libraries Australia, search SIAL: Serials in Australian Libraries which includes a few extra older journal holdings.
The National Library hosts a service called Trove which also lets you search for books and journals in Australian libraries.

 

 

WorldCat

The WorldCat database is an online Union Catalog. It contains more than 32 million records describing items owned by libraries around the world.

 

Printed indexes to literature

If you want to do serious research into a French literature topic you'll need to use a specialised index. So far, these exist only in printed format, but they are excellent resources because they are devoted just to French literature, whereas databases such as MLA cover a wide range of literatures, of which French is a relatively small part.

The most important index is:

French XX

Other useful printed databases are:

 

Bibliographie de la littérature française du Moyen Age à nos jours

 

 

Bibliographie der franzosischen Literaturwissenschaft

 

 

French 17: An annual descriptive bibliography of French seventeenth century studies

 

You'll find French XX in the Barr Smith Library Reference collection on Level 2 North. My desk is in the Research Librarians' area, also on Level 2; if you need help in using an index come in and ask me - I'll be happy to help! Here's a map of Level 2 showing the locations of both the Reference collection and the Research Librarians' area.

I've provided simple, step-by-step instructions on how to use a printed index on my Literature search techniques pages, using the excellent French XX index as an example.

Citation indexes

A Citation index enables you to find articles published at a later date which cite a particular key reference (journal article, book, conference paper, etc.). A research trail can be followed forward from the year an article is published.
Moving from a known reference to more recent articles which cite it is an excellent way to follow scholarly discussion on a given topic. Researchers also use the number of citations to their own papers as a measure of the impact of their research: the higher the number of citations, the greater the impact.
Cited reference searching is a two-step process. First, you look up the reference you are interested in - you can search by cited author, cited work, or cited year - then you ask the database to retrieve the articles that cite that reference.

You can use Citation indexes to find out how often a published work has been cited - for example, if you are interested, you can track citations to one of your own articles.

If you wish, you can set up a system that will let you know when any future citations to your article appear: see my section on Alerts and Saved searches.

 

Web of Science

This database includes the Sciences citation index, the Social sciences citation index, and the Arts & Humanities citation index, from 1980 to date. Search by author, keyword or citation.
Web of Science is the best-known citation index.

 

 

Scopus

A large database with an emphasis on science but which also indexes over 3500 arts and humanities peer-reviewed journal titles. Covers 1980 onwards for topic searching: from 1996 onwards the Scopus database allows cited reference searching to find articles that have cited a given article.
There's a useful series of interactive tutorials on how to search Scopus effectively. Especially relevant is the Cited Reference Searching tutorial.
Scopus has a free mobile app: Scopus Alerts (Lite) gives researchers mobile access to the Searching and Alerting features of Scopus. It's designed to eliminate the need for you to seek out a desktop or laptop computer while travelling, attending conferences or commuting to work. If you're a regular Scopus user, and you have an iPhone, you'll want to give this one a try. Before using the app, you need to visit the Scopus site and register using your University of Adelaide email address.

 

Journal rankings and impact factors

 

Journal Citation Reports

A useful adjunct to the citation indexes, Journal Citation Reports (generally known just as 'JCR') is a comprehensive resource for journal evaluation using citation data drawn from scholarly and technical journals from more than 60 countries, and covering virtually all areas of science, technology, and social sciences. It provides rankings and impact factors by listing the most frequently cited journals in a field. Citation and article counts are important indicators of how frequently current researchers are using individual journals. By tabulating and aggregating citation and article counts, JCR offers a unique perspective for journal evaluation and comparison.
For hints on how to use JCR, visit Using Journal Citation Reports Wisely. If you want a thorough introduction to effective searching, try the JCR tutorial.

 

Finding material in other libraries

If the book or journal that you are looking for isn't listed in the University of Adelaide Library Catalogue you may want to check to see if it is held by another library in Australia.
The Library's Document delivery service can obtain copies of journal articles and get books on interlibrary loan for you.

 

Libraries Australia (formerly called Kinetica)

Use the Libraries Australia database to find which Australian libraries hold a particular book or journal.
If you use the Advanced search option you can limit your search to find specific material such as Books, Journals or Newspapers. If you wish, you can also limit the results of your search to show only items held in local, South Australian libraries.
If you don't find the journal you are looking for in Libraries Australia, try repeating your search in SIAL: Serials in Australian Libraries which includes a few additional older journal holdings.
The National Library hosts a service called Trove which also lets you search for books and journals in Australian libraries.

 

 

WorldCat

The WorldCat database is an online Union Catalog. It contains more than 32 million records describing items owned by libraries around the world.

 

 

British Library Integrated Catalogue

Search for details of over 12 million books and other material from 1450 to the present day.

 

Alerts and Saved searches

Many databases allow you to save your searches on their servers and will alert you when new articles on your topic are added to their files. Databases that index citations, such as Scopus and World of Science, will also let you create document citation alerts. This means that you will be notified when a selected article is cited by another article.
A database Alert will usually be sent to you by email, or you may be able to sign up for an RSS feed. [Not sure about RSS? Here's a straightforward explanation].

To set up an Alert you typically have to register with the database by filling in an online form with your contact details. You will usually also be asked to assign yourself a username and a password.
For example, if you want to set up Search history/Alerts on the database Academic Search Premier you click on the tab at the top of the page labelled Sign In to My EBSCOhost. When the Sign in page appears, click on the tab labelled I'm a new user, fill in the Registration form then click the Submit button. Shortly after you will receive an email confirming that you have an account registered with My EBSCOhost.

Once you have registered you can set your Preferences for future searching - just click on the word Preferences under the Academic Search Premier Search box. Here you can choose from different format options for your search results. You can do things like select your preferred citation format (the Author/Date system is one of the options) and have the database save items in a file formatted for EndNote (and other popular bibliographic formats). You can direct that the formatted file be emailed to you if you wish.

You'll find that the process of setting up an Alert is pretty similar on most databases. It's well worth doing if you need to be sure to have the latest information that is published in your area of interest.

Newspaper searches

Newspapers can be a very useful source of information for French Studies research. I have a separate page French electronic newspapers and news services which has a link to the major newspaper indexing database, Factiva, as well as links to individual newspapers.

Thesis checking

If you are embarking on a thesis you should consult these indexes to theses/dissertations as early as possible; not only is it interesting to see what work has been done on your thesis topic, it is crucial, if you are doing a higher degree, to ensure that your actual thesis topic is original.

 

ProQuest Dissertations and Theses [formerly Dissertation abstracts]

An index to doctoral dissertations (theses) submitted to accredited North American universities and colleges, and some international universities, from 1637 onwards.
Citations from 1980 include a 350-word abstract. From 1997, in addition to the abstract, you can read a preview comprising the first 24 pages of the thesis. Masters theses published since 1988 include 150-word abstracts. You can also download the complete text of each thesis in .pdf format, but you will need to pay for that (as at March 2010 the cost was US$48.00).

 

 

Index to theses

A comprehensive listing of theses, with abstracts, accepted for higher degrees by the universities of Great Britain and Ireland since 1716.
If you want to get hold of a copy of the text of a thesis in the Index to Theses, you'll find information on the Obtaining full text page.

 

 

Système Universitaire de Documentation

Pour consulter les thèses recherchez dans le catalogue du Système Universitaire de Documentation. Lisez d'abord Chercher les références d'un travail universitaire dans le catalogue Sudoc; puis cliquez sur Sudoc - Catalogue.

 

 

Libraries Australia

Libraries Australia is the main database for locating Australian theses. Search using keywords and tick the Theses box under 'Limit to:'

.

 

 

Australasian Digital Theses Program

The University of Adelaide is a member of the Australasian Digital Theses Program. This is a national collaborative program which aims to establish a distributed database of digital versions of theses produced by postgraduate research students at Australian universities.
You can browse or search for a thesis.

 

How to access the databases

Databases for which the Library has purchased a network licence may be accessed remotely from your home computer, if you are a current member of the University of Adelaide community. You must access a database through the Library Catalogue or by clicking on the links I have provided on this page so that your University of Adelaide logon details are recognised by the index supplier.

The remote user login page has information about using your Username and Password to get remote access to databases and other electronic resources.

Please note:-- The terms of our licence agreements with suppliers strictly limit remote access to electronic databases to enrolled students and staff members of the University of Adelaide.

If you need help with a French database or index, click the button

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