Database Tools

Traditionally, the research process started using the Library’s catalog and databases to find sources for your research questions and literature review. It is important to understand the different types of platforms and how their coverage differs:

Tool Example Content
Library Catalog Primo Records of everything that the library has access to, including books, journals, gov docs, articles, physical and digital
Library “Database” IEEE Xplore Curated sets of materials with enhanced metadata to aid in discovery
Citation Index Web of Science Curated records and citation information about wide ranges of published literature

Library Catalog (Primo)

The search box on library’s home page goes to our Primo Discovery Service, i.e. the library’s full online catalog. The catalog contains records for almost everything that the library has access to, including physical and digital formats, books, journals, government documents, videos, and more. This includes resources from our consortium, the Orbis Cascade Alliance, 35+ academic libraries in the Northwest.

Usage notes:

  • Always sign in to ensure you have proxy access to resources.
  • scopes (UI Library, Summit, E-Resources)
  • filters (date, resource type, etc)
  • record features (citation, permalink, “View It”)
  • “personalize” (weights search results in your discipline)
  • account (check loan status, saved items/searches/history, requests)

Library “Databases”

The library subscribes to “databases” which contain curated content and metadata to support research. Browse the A-Z Databases List for descriptions and access links.

Citation Indexes

Indexes provide metadata about scholarly literature, but don’t necessarily provide access to the content. They are useful for exploring research areas and discovering new content, especially for “citation chaining”.

  • Web of Science
    • Content: wide coverage of science scholarly/peer-reviewed articles from the most important journals and conference proceedings. Index only (metadata, not full text), contains items that the Library might not have access to.
    • Excellent citation tracking, enables in depth citation chaining.
    • Filter by highly cited, “hot in the field”, to explore subject area.
    • Export data, citation lists.
  • Google Scholar
    • Content: good content coverage of academic literature, but not all peer-reviewed and sources are not always clearly labeled.
    • Not human curated, quality can be suspect or confusing.
    • Familiar / easy to search.
    • Okay citation tracking.
    • Connect to UI Library:
      • If you connect U of I Library to your Scholar account, search results will show a link “Univ of Idaho - Get it” to access full text items in our subscriptions.
      • How to connect to UI Library

Search Strategies

While AI tools excel at using natural language, traditional Library database search strategies are the opposite–normal phrases do not provide good results. Instead, the quality of your literature review depends on careful consideration of your subject keywords.

Develop Keywords

  • Write down your research topic or question.
    • Start from a potential group project topic: Palouse Groundwater Management, Campus Clean Energy Technologies, STEM Literacy and Learning Experiences, Sustainable Campus Events and Operations.
  • Underline the key terms.
  • Starting from your known topics, write down some:
    • Broader concepts
    • Narrower concepts
    • Related concepts
    • Synonyms

Boolean Searching

Booleans operators to expand, narrow, and refine your search terms:

  • Test your keywords:
    • Experiment with different uses of AND, OR, and NOT
    • Try * wildcards to allow multiple word endings
  • How do the number of results change?
  • How do the type of results change?
  • Do results bring up new related terms and keywords?

Citation Chaining

Good scholarship builds on other good scholarship! Citations are an essential part of scholarly literature. They are also incredibly useful for starting your research.

If you know one good article in your topic area, you can explore the works it cites, and the newer articles that cite it. Scholarship is a network!

Research Tools AI Tools