Classics and Ancient History: finding and using library resources for assignments: 2. Where should I look?

A search for classical Greek art in Library Search returns the following catalogue results. Note the type of content. There is a mixture of print and electronic texts.

This search finds matches in book and journal titles (and in brief details such as subject terms, contents page listing details).  For more granular searching within the content of books and journals you should use the Articles + more feature of Library Search and the research databases.

You will find many results on the Articles + more tab than the Catalogue tab if you were to run the same classical Greek art search.

In addition to all the content in the Catalogue tab, there is also a wide range of content from various full text resources, with journal articles, book chapters and other full text resources that match your search terms.

Articles + more search is often a good starting point for introductory material, but if you want to research the global literature on a topic, and go beyond quick full text results, then you should follow up with a database search. You can tailor your search more precisely using all the sophisticated functionality available on the research databases.  

You can also use Library Search to check on the availability of print and online journal titles.

As you begin searching the research databases you may find references to particular journal articles that look interesting.  Some databases only include short bibliographic details of articles with an abstract.  If you want to read the full text you can use Library Search to discover if you have full text access.

To search for journal titles, just enter some/all of the journal title into the library Search box and then browse the Catalogue tab to check for access.

A search for Helios returns the following catalogue results. You can browse through the list and click on the titles for access.

In this example for the journal Helios you can see that there is current online access via Project Muse and Humanities International Complete.

We also have some past issues available in print in the Forum Library.

Select Classics from the drop down subject menu.

A few core resources will be highlighted in the yellow box. These are key databases that are likely to be of interest to anyone studying and researching in that area. All other databases relevant to the subject are listed below the core resources. 

Your ELE module contains some recommendations for resources that you will want to explore in support of this module.

Some of they key resources that you are likely to find most useful for this module are highlighted in the remainder of the guide.

What is a database? 

Research databases enable you to see what has been published in the area you are researching. They contain detailed records of thousands of journal articles, book references and conference proceedings. These records usually include the article title, authors, abstract (a brief summary), keywords (to enable your search to find it) and more.

Why should I use a database?

• They are a valuable way of searching for published scholarly research across a wide number of sources
• You can build complex searches using sophisticated search interfaces. There will be plenty of options to refine your searches, ensuring that the results are likely to be relevant to your needs
• They contain huge numbers of records, and thus provide comprehensive subject coverage
• They also provide frequent (often daily) indexing, and so are very up to date

It is important to note:

• Some databases provide full text access to the articles themselves.
• Some databases are primarily indexes or bibliographic databases, and although they provide information about the content of a journal article, they may not provide full-text access to the actual article itself.
• Some databases are a mixture of full-text and indexed/bibliographic access.

So, when searching databases, be prepared for an extra step. 

After finding a relevant article or book you need to check whether you have access to that item, either in print or in full-text online.  Many of the databases will have a Check for this at Exeter button; clicking on this link will check whether we have access to the item.

For more information and top tips on finding the full text, see the How to access full text articles libguide.