SearchBox is a convenient tool that searches journal and magazine articles, books, videos and music in AU Library and the Washington Research Library Consortium. Learn more.
1. Type in the title of the article in the SearchBox and it will link to the full-text article if AU Library has it.
2. If you only have the journal title, the Find Journals link will tell you which AU database has the full text of the journal.
American University users can obtain a copy of almost every published article or book in these databases.
For AU Library databases, if the full-text article is not available, click on the button. Or use the Interlibrary Loan form. The article can be obtained through the Consortium Loan Service (2 business days) or Interlibrary Loan (longer than 2 days).
Boolean operators:
AND - use to narrow a search and get fewer and more relevant results.
elections and voters
OR - use to broaden a search and get more results. Good for synonyms and words with variant spellings. Add parentheses when using OR.
("latin america" or argentina or colombia)
(organization or organisation)
NOT - use to narrow a search to get more relevant results
mexico not "new mexico"
Truncation:
Use to find words with different word endings. Most databases use an asterisk (*)
e.g. immigrant* yields immigrant, immigrants
e.g. immigra* yields immigrant, immigrants, immigrate, immigration, immigrating, etc.
Proximity search:
Use to find words that are close to each other on a page.
It is one way to find more relevant results.
Each family of databases has its own command words.
EBSCO:
n# = words near another word in any order, within a certain number
fundamental* n3 islam*
Factiva:
near# = words near another word in any order, within a certain number
president* near3 speech
HeinOnline
~# = words near each other in any order, within a certain number
"watershed planning"~10
Nexis Uni:
w/#=words within a specified number of words, in any order
"human rights" w/2 violations
w/s = words within the same sentence
crime w/s (dc or "district of columbia")
w/p = words within the same paragraph
gays w/p military
Ovid:
adj# = words near another word in any order, within a certain number
ProQuest:
near/# = words near another word in any order, within a certain number
"renewable energy" near/5 viable
Scopus
w/# = words near another word in any order, within a certain number
Web of Science:
near/# = words near another word in any order, within a certain number
government near/3 fund*
The databases in this page provide the citation, abstract, and in some cases, the full text of journal and magazine articles, books, and dissertations. They are sorted by order of prominence and then alphabetically.
Use only articles from scholarly journals for literature reviews, not those from newspapers or magazines or technical reports.
The following EBSCO databases can be searched at the same time. Directions: Click on one of these databases; click on "Choose Databases" at the top of the page; and then select the appropriate databases.
An index of scholarly literature on the history and culture of the United States and Canada.
Bibliographic database covering the world's scholarly literature in history, excluding the United States and Canada. Equivalent to the printed version of Historical Abstracts.
Citations to more than 32,000 printed material about the Americas written in Europe before 1750. It covers the history of European exploration as well as portrayals of native American peoples. This database is the online version of the 6 volumes "European Americana: A Chronological Guide to Works Printed In Europe Relating to The Americas, 1493-1750," edited by John Alden and Dennis Landis (New York: Readex Books, 1980-1988).
Citations to English-language articles, book reviews, and feature stories in over 190 journals devoted to Jewish affairs.
Provides access to the literature on the left, with a primary emphasis on politically and culturally engaged scholarship inside and outside the academy and a secondary emphasis on significant but little known sources of news and ideas.
Index to international literature on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender issues.
Although the following databases focus on Africa, almost all the databases on this page cover Africa. Unless listed as a "free resource," all the databases are restricted to .
The Africa Bibliography is an authoritative guide to works in African Studies published under the auspices of the International African Institute annually since 1984.
Coverage: 1984-2022.
There is a known issue preventing OpenURL queries from working correctly. To find full text, either copy and paste article titles into AU Library Search, or connect to the secure campus networ (includes AU VPN) and click on Google Scholar links.
The following databases have journal articles that focus on Latin America and the Hispanic population. Many of the journals are from Latin America. Unless listed as a "free resource," all the databases are restricted to .
Fuente Academica Premier is a rapidly expanding collection of over 570 scholarly journals from Latin America, Portugal and Spain. All major subject areas are covered with particular emphasis on agriculture, biological sciences, economics, history, law, literature, philosophy, psychology, public administration, religion and sociology. The database is updated weekly.
Use these databases if a comprehensive search is needed. They are not a good place to start one's research.
This scholarly database contains over 3,600 peer-reviewed publications in full-text on every subject.