A survey of proprietary electronic periodical databases
Proprietary databases are created by specialized information companies and are leased by Smith Library in order to provide access to Shenandoah University students, faculty and staff.  They are NOT provided free of charge, and by contract Smith Library must limit their use by keeping them password protected.

• Arts and Humanities
• Biological and Life Sciences
• Business and Economics 
• Conferences and Proceedings 
• Education 
• General and Reference
• General Science 
• Medicine and Health Sciences 
• People 
• Public Affairs and Law 
• Social Sciences

Dialog Database Sources - Thomson, the parent company, offers over 900 different databases in a wide variety of fields

Assignment:  Search Statement Creation Exercise - will be distributed on Tuesday 10-21-08.  DUE: Tuesday 11-4-08

Periodical database analysis.  Consider these seven  questions when selecting a digitized periodical index which will best meet your needs. 

• How many periodicals are indexed?
• What types of periodicals are indexed - scholarly, popular or trade?
• Does the database cover many disciplines, or like ERIC and PsycInfo specialize in only one?
• Are non-periodicals indexed?  If so, what types of materials?
• What is the date of the earliest materials indexed?
• Does the database provide citations only, citations and abstracts, or fulltext?
• If fulltext is available, what date did it become available?

Library Databases A - Z