A Library database provides quality information that is available to you online. Library databases contain information such as:
scholarly peer-reviewed articles
articles from journals, magazines, and newspapers on many topics
newspaper articles
trade publications
book reviews
magazine articles
entries from encyclopedias or dictionaries
dissertations/theses
Trout Library subscribes to 30 subscription-based databases. Subscription-based databases require user login authentication to access off-campus. You will need to enter the username and password to access the database off-campus.
You can find the Library Database Password List as an icon on the Harcum Hatch portal. When you click on the icon, it will take you to the page that lists the usernames and passwords that are needed to access the Library's subscription-based databases.
The Library also provides links to 27 open access databases which are freely available on the Internet.
To access the Library Databases, click on the Databases link for more information.
Popular Sources
If they cover research studies, they will broadly summarize studies that appeared in a scholarly journal
Articles are shorter than those in scholarly journals and cover a wide range of topics
Contain many photographs and advertisements
Articles are usually written by journalists
Written for a general audience
Examples include magazines like Philadelphia Magazine or newspapers like The New York Times
Scholarly Journals
Articles are written by scholars and researchers for a scholarly audience.
Articles are longer than articles found in popular magazines
Articles go into depth on a very specific topic
Articles report on research studies or experiments
Articles are intended to break new ground or fill gaps in human knowledge
Articles may contain case studies or literature reviews
Usually contain few or no advertisements
Examples include journals like Journal of Pediatric Nursing or Nature
Sources are always cited and lists of references are always included
Choose your words
Keywords are descriptive words or important concepts. Search using just keywords rather than full sentences.
Omit words like "the", "a", "are", "it" from the search. Most databases do not search for these words and they can impact the search results.
Identify keywords from your background research.
Brainstorm synonyms for keywords and search all possible concepts.
Look up your keywords in the database Subject Headings or Thesaurus section to determine if you are using the correct phrase or spelling.
Put quotation marks around phrases to retrieve results with the exact phrase ("mouse and rat")
The asterisk (*) wildcard, also known as the truncation wildcard, is generally used to find word endings. (Metaboli* will find results with metabolism, metabolic, metabolite, metabolites, metabolizing, and metabolically)
Improve Search Results by Connecting Keywords with Boolean Logic
Boolean (pronounced BOO-lee-an) are connectors between search terms. They can be used to make sophisticated searches. They are used to combine different concepts, combine similar concepts or eliminate concepts. Boolean uses three simple terms, AND, OR, NOT.
Use AND to retrieve results with both concepts (mouse AND rat)
Use OR to retrieve either keyword (mouse OR rat)
Use NOT to omit a keyword (mouse NOT rat)
The areas shaded in black represent the database search results when using a specific Boolean Operator between two keywords.
Cecelia Vetter, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Focus Results with Limiters
Full Text will limit results to articles with full text.
Peer Reviewed limits results to articles from peer-reviewed journals.
Scholarly Journals limits results to articles from academic publishers of both "peer-reviewed" and not "peer-reviewed" journals intended for an academic audience.
Date Published can be used to limit results to a specified date range.
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