Use article databases to find journals articles (as well as dissertations, book chapters, and other resources) on a specific topic. In some cases, you will be able to link directly from the article database to the full text of the article. In other cases, you will need to search the title of the journal (not the author or title of the article) in the online catalog, to find out where it is located.
By "article databases" we mean both bibliographic databases (databases that contain records or citations to journal articles) and online full-text journal archives. Many bibliographic databases include some full text.
There are many article databases you can use to find scholarly articles on historical topics. These can yield secondary or primary sources, depending on how you have formulated your research topic. You may need to search several databases and indexes to find a range of articles on your topic. A comprehensive search may include both print and online indexes.
The main article databases for historians are:
The main article database for religious studies scholars is:
In addition to these databases, there are several other article databases that will be useful to both historians and religious studies scholars:
For even more article databases that might be relevant to your research, see the list here of article indexes and online bibliographies in our guide to the:
Although article databases are usually the best place to start a general search for journal articles, if you have very specific keywords in mind, full text journal article collections can sometimes yield good results.
For older journals, use:
Several major journals in JSTOR include:
For recent issues of hundreds of scholarly journals:
Some of the major journals in Project MUSE include:
Finally, a very useful, but often overlooked, source of journals for historians and religious studies scholars is:
As more and more journals become available online, some through commercial "aggregators" and others individually, it becomes difficult to keep track of all the e-journals available in a particular discipline. How can you determine if a particular journal is available electronically?