LibGuides: Science and Technology Studies : Journal Articles

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Humanities Indexes & Databases

History of Science, Technology and Medicine
Describes journal articles, conference proceedings, books, book reviews, and dissertations in the history of science, technology, and medicine and allied historical fields. The database integrates the Isis Current Bibliography of the History of Science, the Current Bibliography in the History of Technology (Technology and Culture), the Bibliografia Italiana di Storia della Scienza and the Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine. Updated quarterly; covers 1975-present.
Historical Abstracts
Covers world history, excluding North America, from 1450 to the present era. It indexes journals from around the world and also includes books and dissertations. Includes articles on the History and Philosophy of Science. Coverage is from 1954 - present.
Philosophers Index
Good coverage of philosopy-related aspects of science and technology. Indexes articles, anthologies, book reviews, books and essays in anthologies. It is international in scope and not limited to any one period or culture. Coverage is from 1940 - present.

Science Indexes & Databases

Scopus
Abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature and quality web sources. It contains 41 million records with around 18,000 titles from 5,000 publishers worldwide. It includes over 3 million conference papers and offers sophisticated tools to track, analyze and visualize research.
Web of Science
Indexes 8,500 research journals across the Social Sciences, Sciences and Arts & Humanities. Allows you to search for articles by subject, author, journal, and author address as well as for articles that cite a known author or work (citation searching). Coverage is from 1900 - present.

Interdisciplinary Indexes & Databases

Scholars Portal
This resource consists of a single search screen that provides access to multiple databases for searching literature in a variety of disciplines. Choose a subject area or select specific databases to conduct a search.

JSTOR
Used by millions for research, teaching, and learning. With more than a thousand academic journals and over 1 million images, letters, and other primary sources, JSTOR is one of the world's most trusted sources for academic content.
Applied Science and Technology Index
Indexes primarily English language technology articles. Coverage includes trade and industry publications, journals published by professional and technical societies as well as buyer's guides, directories and conference proceedings. Has some good PHilosophy of Science articles. Coverage from 1983 to the present.
CBCA Reference
This product includes all the content present in the Canadian Business & Current Affairs (CBCA) databases. Subject coverage is comprehensive. Information is present from all areas including: current events, business, education, science and medicine, arts, law, academia, and lifestyles, all with a Canadian focus. Full text is available within these areas.
Google Scholar
A subset of regular Google, it allows users to search for articles from all disciplines. Content is heavily skewed towards scholarly and scientific information; however, humanities and social science content is present, as is non-scholarly material.
Social Science Abstracts
Indexes journals from a wide variety of social science disciplines and interdisciplinary fields. These fields include psychology, sociology, urban studies, etc. Emphasis is on the United States with some international coverage. Coverage is from 1994 - present

Search Tips

Databases are robust - don't be afraid to try exploratory searches using different combinations of words and techniques to target your search. If what you are doing doesn't work, clear your search settings or re-open the database again to start over!

When searching online, various words are used to help broaden or narrow your search. Here are a few tips you should know before searching any academic database:

Boolean operators: Most internet and electronic databases follow the rules of boolean logic. Boolean logic refers to the relationships (connections or differences) between different search terms. The most common boolean operators are:

AND - used to narrow a search and establish more relevant results by linking keywords together (e.g. "behavioural" and "psychology").

OR - broadens a search and get more results. Typically used for synonyms and words with variant spellings (e.g. "self-actualization" and "self-identity").

NOT - use to narrow a search and get more relevant results (e.g. "behaviouralism" not "humanism").

Truncation: used to find similar words with different endings

e.g. human* searches "human and humans"

e.g. educat* searches "education", "educate", "educational" etc

asterisk (*) searches for various different endings of a word in most databases (including York University), however LexisNexis uses an exlamation mark (!).

Other Tips

Advanced Search - this option is available on most databases, and allows you to specialize your search based on documents (books, articles, video etc), date, geographic location, language, etc.

Quotation Marks - using quotation marks will allow you to search for exact phrases. For example, searching "mental impairment" will only retreive searches with both "mental" and "impairment" together in that order.

Refine Search - many online databases allow you to specify your search criteria after selecting your keywords and clicking on search.

Finding a Specific Journal - if you know the name of the journal you are looking for, type it in the library catalogue, then select "Periodical Title", then hit "go".