LibGuides: Geology and Geoscience: finding and using library resources for assignments: 4. Research databases

Activity

Tutorial: How to search within a database

Databases for your subject

Environment Complete Full text database covering literature across geography, environmental sciences, renewable energy and urban planning and policy.
GeoScience World Full text database covering geoscience literature.
Lyell Collection Access to Geological Society earth science literature.
ScienceDirect Peer-reviewed journals, articles, book chapters and open access content, primarily covering science, technology, and medicine, but also including some social science and humanities subjects - notably, business & management, accounting, finance and economics.
Web of Science A bibliographic index to the world’s leading scholarly literature in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities, supporting comprehensive literature searching. NOTE: not all results will provide the full-text content. Use the "check for this at Exeter" option to find out if the Library provides access to the full text.

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.

Core databases for your subject

The core databases for your subject are:

GeoScience World Full text database covering geoscience literature.
ScienceDirect Peer-reviewed journals, articles, book chapters and open access content, primarily covering science, technology, and medicine, but also including some social science and humanities subjects - notably, business & management, accounting, finance and economics.
Web of Science A bibliographic index to the world’s leading scholarly literature in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities, supporting comprehensive literature searching. NOTE: not all results will provide the full-text content. Use the "check for this at Exeter" option to find out if the Library provides access to the full text.

See the following tabs for more information about these resources.

GeoScience World Full text database covering geoscience literature.

Geoscience World (GSW) provides access to journal articles from the leading geoscientific organisations such as the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG), Geological Society of America (GSA),The Geological Society London (GSL) and the Society of Exploration Geologists (SEG).

Watch this short video (3 min.) to learn more.

Find maps in geological journal literature by search terms or by geographic region. Links to the full text of the articles are included. Most maps are georeferenced and the data can be integrated into tools such as ArcGIS and GoogleEarth.

Watch this demo of (7 mims) to learn how to use the database

ScienceDirect Peer-reviewed journals, articles, book chapters and open access content, primarily covering science, technology, and medicine, but also including some social science and humanities subjects - notably, business & management, accounting, finance and economics.

A database of peer-reviewed journals, articles and book chapters and open access content. Primarily covering science, including earth and planetary sciences, technology and medicine

Get started by using the Make the most of your access to ScienceDirect pdf

ScienceDirect: make the most of your access

ScienceDirect

Web of Science A bibliographic index to the world’s leading scholarly literature in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities, supporting comprehensive literature searching. NOTE: not all results will provide the full-text content. Use the "check for this at Exeter" option to find out if the Library provides access to the full text.

Web of Science (WoS) is one of the key research databases that enables you to search across global literature on a topic. You can use sophisticated search techniques to help pinpoint the information you need. You can also use WoS functionality to link through to full text (where available) and examine related references and cited references in order to broaden your research.

See below for brief instructions on how to search the database.

Make sure you visit the tutorial, available in the self-test activities section on this page, for more detailed guidance.