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ryan-matura library & learning resources
What are Electronic Databases?
Electronic databases are your door to convenient, thorough, professional-quality research from anywhere in the world (provided there is an Internet connection). The Ryan-Matura Library subscribes to dozens of electronic databases. These powerful tools put a vast amount of information literally at the researcher’s fingertips. Database access is available to all faculty, currently enrolled students, and staff.
The databases can be accessed either at the library or from any location, 24-7 through the Internet. (Access from off-campus requires you to enter your last name and the last 7 digits of your SHU ID).Librarians are available in person at the reference desk, by telephone (203-371-7726) and by email ( reference@sacredheart.edu) to assist you in getting the most out of our databases.
Through our collection of journal and ebook databases, we have access to over 14,000 full text journals and 35,000 full text books and reference sources online. These materials are accessible not only through the methods we describe below, but individual titles may also be found by searching the Library's online catalog, Enterprise.
When searching, the records you retrieve from the databases will differ and may contain many different elements, such as citations to documents, abstracts of documents, the full-text of journal articles, links to downloadable documents, e-books, images, and so on. The fields that can be searched also vary. Common fields are author, title, date and subject terms, but there are many others.While particular features vary, databases share the capacity to conduct searches of vast amounts of information with lightening speed.
The fact that Sacred Heart’s “Ebrary" e-book collection is organized as a database, for example, makes it possible to very quickly search for e-books by author, title, subject, publisher or, for that matter, to search for terms and phrases in the text of the e-books. Ebrary is available at:
http://0-site.ebrary.com.enterprise.sacredheart.edu/lib/sacredheart
Many of the databases, such as EBSCOhost’s PsycARTICLES, offer a wide array of options for searching that its users quickly come to appreciate and rely upon. A researcher using PsycARTICLES can limit a search to particular classification codes (such as “3315 Psychoanalytic Therapy”), to particular methodologies (such as “Empirical Study”), to a particular population group (such as “female” or “male”), to an age group (such as “Preschool Age 2-5 yrs”), and so on.
Databases also typically feature the ability to search more than one field at a time and sometimes more than one database at a time. Many will allow you to search for phrases “man bites dog” or to conduct Boolean searches such as “(man OR woman) AND bites AND dog”. Several—such as PsycARTICLES, Academic Search Premier, Social Work Abstracts and Science Business News—even feature a “visual search” that groups results in conceptually distinct categories. These databases, and many others, can be accessed through the Research Databases A to Z listing directory at: http://library.sacredheart.edu/dbA-Z.html
The Library has attempted to acquire databases to satisfy the research needs of undergraduates in all majors. The number of databases allows the researcher great flexibility in choosing the right database, or databases, for their individual research needs. They also will provide you with opportunities to expand upon, narrow, or refine your research. With a little patience, most researchers come to appreciate—and to genuinely enjoy—the tremendous flexibility, power and convenience the electronic databases place in their hands.
From the Sacred Heart University Homepage go to “Quick Links” (upper right-hand corner) then to Ryan-Matura Library then to the “Find Resources” tab and the “Find Articles (Research Databases) link. From here you can scroll through an A-Z list of databases, check for the availability of particular journal titles or check for journals listed in a particular subject area.
Bookmark the Research Databases entry page for easy access: http://library.sacredheart.edu/dbA-Z.html.