Regardless of the ability to switch interface and search languages in a variety of the large, widely-used subscription databases the library has access to, research in the English language tends to be dominant, as does material from or about the Global North.
In this section, find a list of free-to-access (or accessible through Exeter library subscriptions) databases with a specific focus on research from different parts of the world. In many of these databases, English is an option, but not the default. Please note that this list is far from exhaustive!
For further resources, have a look at the library's "decolonising your reading list" guide.
The Ovid platform has within it a number of commonly-used databases, including Medline, Embase, PsycInfo, and Global Health. The Ovid platform allows users to change the language of the interface to French, Italian, German, Spanish, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), Japanese and Korean. This can be done from the bottom of the screen:
However, it is only possible to search in languages which use the Roman alphabet (English, French, Italian, Spanish, German).
Further information can be found on this FAQ page: https://wkhlrp.my.site.com/ovidsupport/s/article/Is-it-possible-to-perform-Ovid-searches-in-languages-other-than-English
EBSCO databases (such as CINAHL, SportDiscus, and AMED), allow users to both change the interface of and search in, a variety of languages.
To do this, click on the languages option on the top-right of the page:
Find more information on EBSCO's "Multilingual support FAQs": https://connect.ebsco.com/s/article/EBSCOhost-Multilingual-Support-FAQs?language=en_US#chinese1
To change the interface language in ProQuest databases, click on the icon of a person at the top-right of the screen, and then click on "English" (or whatever language is listed in this drop-down screen):
Change the language of the Web of Science interface using the drop-down menu at the top-right of the screen:
To change the search language, follow this guidance from Clarivate: https://images.webofknowledge.com/images/help/WOK/hp_search_language.html
To filter results to a particular language, some (but not all) Ovid databases will often have a "language" filter option, underneath the search box. Below is an example from Medline.
If the "languages" option does not appear, choose the "Edit limits" button to add this to the default filters.
EBSCO databases have a number of filters, listed under the search bar, which you can apply to your search, including a language filter:
In ProQuest databases, filter your results to those in a particular language using the "Advanced Search":
Apply a language filter after searching, using the filtering options on the left-hand side of the results page:
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