Electronic databases for Media research

What are databases ?

On this page I've listed the best databases to use for Media research.

The prime purpose of databases (often called a bibliographic databases) is to find journal articles on a topic. A database is a computerised index to journal articles, chapters in books and other sources of information such as conference papers. The Library Catalogue will only tell you the titles of journals held by, or that we can access from, the University of Adelaide Library. A database will index each individual article from an extensive range of journals, not all of which will necessarily be in the University of Adelaide Library collections here.
Note that databases cover journals world wide. No library will contain or have access to all the articles indexed. That means that you will need to check the results of your search to see if the articles you have identified as relevant are available in the University of Adelaide Library.

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.

You'll find more information about databases lower down on this page.

Major databases for Media

The most important databases for Media research are:

Academic search premier

Indexes and provides abstracts of articles from over 8,000 journals. Of these, full text is provided for over 4,600 journals, and more than 3,600 are peer-reviewed.
Coverage: social sciences, humanities, education, computer sciences, engineering, physics, chemistry, language and linguistics, arts & literature, medical sciences, ethnic studies.
Academic search premier is one of the Ebscohost research databases to which the Library subscribes. For information on searching have a look at the Ebscohost Help page.

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. The publisher maintains a complete listing of journals covered by Academic OneFile, with details of dates of coverage.

Film & Television Literature Index (FTLI)

FTLI is definitely the best place to look for journal articles on film and TV. It is a comprehensive bibliographic database covering the entire spectrum of television and film writing from 1976 to date. It indexes 150 film and television journals from 30 countries cover-to-cover and 200 other journals selectively for articles on film and television. Subject coverage includes film reviews, film theory, television theory, preservation, restoration, writing, production, cinematography, technical aspects, and more. FTLI is one of the Ebscohost research databases to which the Library subscribes.
To find journal articles I suggest you use the Advanced Search option, choose Academic Journal as the Publication Type and Article as the Document Type.
For more information on searching have a look at the Help page.

Indiana University provides free access to the earlier version of this database, FLI Online. This is the electronic version of the print Film Literature Index and contains over 700,000 articles, film reviews and book reviews published between 1976-2001.
I suggest you use the beaut Filter mechanism on your results - you can display citations based on document types: article, film review or book review, and also limit your results to English language publications.

Sociological abstracts

Coverage 1963+. An index with abstracts (1974+) to journals, conference papers, book reviews, books in sociology, social policy, psychology and social sciences, especially those dealing with culture and society.

MLA

The MLA (Modern Language Association) International Bibliography is a subject index to journal articles and books on modern languages, literatures, folklore, and linguistics, and also indexes journals in related areas such as Cultural studies, Film studies and Media. 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, Spanish, German, Russian, Portuguese, Norwegian, and Swedish.

Other useful databases

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.

Australian public affairs - full text: APA-FT

Includes citations (from 1978 onwards) and some full text (from 1995 onwards) for journal articles, selected newspaper articles, conference papers and books in Australian business, health, current affairs, economics, humanities, law, literature, politics and social sciences. If APA-FT is not available, use APAIS (see below):

APAIS (citations only)

(Australian Public Affairs Information Service) [part of the AUSTROM group of databases]. Index only; not full text. Use if APA-FT is not available (see above).

The Web of Science (WoS)

The WoS 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 indexes over 2800 social sciences, humanities journal titles. Covers 1980 onwards for topic searching: from 1996 onwards allows cited reference searching to find articles that have cited a given article.

Periodicals index online

A database of millions of article citations published in over 4,500 journals covering the arts, humanities and social sciences, across more than 300 years.
From the PIO results screen there is a link to Periodicals Archive Online which provides access to hundreds of online journals.

ERIC

Indexes Current index to journals in education (CIJE) and Resources in education (RIE). A U.S. Department of Education database covering the journal and research literature in the field of education research and practice. The world's largest source of education information, containing abstracts of documents and journal articles.

PsycINFO

Psychological abstracts. Citations and abstracts of journal articles, book chapters, books, and technical reports in the field of psychology and psychological aspects of related disciplines including medicine, psychiatry, nursing, sociology, education, pharmacology, physiology, linguistics, anthropology, business, and law. Coverage 1983+ .

LLBA

Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts. Citations to international literature on the nature, use, and teaching of language and also speech, communication and linguistics. Indexes journal articles, books, technical reports, dissertations, book reviews. Coverage 1973+

Australian Media History Database

A database of researchers investigating Australian media history.

Oxford English Dictionary (OED) Online

The Web-based new edition of the OED. Click on the link ENTER OED ONLINE on their website to use the dictionary.


If you just want to quickly look up a word in the OED simply type it in the box below:

[Isn't modern technology wonderful!!]

Statistical databases

Alexa

Offers free web traffic metrics, top sites lists, site demographics, hot urls, and more on a searchable website. Useful for Media research are the Top Sites pages. Here you can find the top 500 sites on the web, look at the top 100 sites in each country, or check the top ranked sites in a number of broad categories.

Global Marketing Information Database [GMID]

GMID contains over a million demographic, economic and marketing statistics for 205 countries worldwide. The database also contains 6-year historic market size data in 52 countries, plus 5-year forecasts. Has search tabs for: Industries; Countries; Consumers; Companies and Geographies. You'll need to register with the database the first time you use it.

Indexes to newspapers

Factiva

Indexes all major Australian newspapers; provides facts and numbers from nearly 9,000 sources in 22 languages, including influential local, national and international newspapers, leading business magazines, trade publications, and newswires.
If you haven't used Factiva before, I strongly suggest you have a look at the Factiva help pages before you start searching.

Elibrary Australasia

A database of full-text newspapers including Australian newspapers, full-text magazines, newswires, classic books, maps, and photographs, as well as major works of literature and art.

Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre

This resource provides access to many Australian and New Zealand newspapers in full text, including News Ltd. publications.

Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program

The much anticipated Australian Newspapers BETA search service is now available from the Search tab on the Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program (ANDP) website. The Beta service includes a range of titles from every state and territory, from the earliest newspaper published in Australia in 1803 through to the mid 1950s; additional pages are being added each week. The National Library welcomes feedback on the service, and will continue development of the Beta service over the next few months. 1.2 million pages have been scanned from microfilm. A list of the titles and date ranges scanned is available from the Selected Newspapers page.

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.

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 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 do not find a journal in Libraries Australia, search SIAL: Serials in Australian Libraries which includes a few extra older journal holdings.

The Library has an excellent and constantly expanding collection of electronic databases - 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.
Many databases will provide full text of the articles either directly, or by linking you to the journal's website through the Library Catalogue.
Most databases will allow you to mark results that you want to follow up and many let you email your marked results, and/or the full text of articles, to your own email address.
Remember that by no means 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 in paper format or as an online subscription, you can make use of our Document delivery service.

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 (in February 2008 the cost was US$35.00).

Index to theses

Theses accepted for higher degrees by the universities of Great Britain and Ireland.

Australasian Digital Theses Program

The University of Adelaide is a member of the ADT program which is building a distributed database of theses in digitised format from Australian universities. Search or browse the database, and find out how to deposit a thesis in the database.

How to access the databases

You'll find information about how to access them on the page for each individual database in the lists above.
Databases for which the Library has purchased a network licence may be accessed remotely, if you are a current member of the University of Adelaide community, from your home or office computer. 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 Media resources, click the button

BACK TO MY MEDIA RESOURCES WEBSITE

This page was created and is maintained by Alan Keig