The databases listed below allow you to limit your search to full text records which you can view on screen.

1st and 2nd year students should be able to find all necessary research materials using these databases.

Final year dissertation students and those working on research projects may need to look further afield. See the section on Dissertations and Research for more information.

Ebscohost Databases

• Ebscohost Research Databases - you may search Ebscohost Research Databases individually or several together.

The following Ebscohost Research Databases will be useful for Applied Social Studies topics:

• Academic Search Elite - this is a large general database which covers all academic disciplines. It is well worth including in most searches as it contains the full text of many core Applied Social Studies journals.
• CINAHL Plus with full text - this is an international nursing and healthcare database which covers 1,200 English language journals. It is useful for all aspects of health and social care.
• Communication & Mass Media Complete - covers more than 660 journals (with full text of 350) on all aspects communication and mass media. Useful for any topics relating to global news and media audiences; press coverage of crime etc.
• Education Research Complete - covers all aspects of education from early childhood to higher education.
• E-journals - access to the full text of thousands of journals available through Ebscohost. One to include for any topic!
• MEDLINE - provides authoritative medical information on medicine, nursing, dentistry, the health care system and more. It covers over over 4,800 biomedical journals. Useful for all health and social care related topics.
• PsycArticles - full text peer reviewed articles in psychology. Useful for all health and social care topics
• PsycINFO - contains scholarly journal articles, book chapters, books and dissertations from over 2.5 million sources. It covers all aspects of psychology and mental health including child development, learning disabilities, learning theories and more.
• SocINDEX with Full Text - one of the world's most comprehensive and highest quality sociology databases with more than 2,035,000 records covering all aspects of sociology, social work, social welfare, children and young people, criminology and more. A core database for most courses.

Other full-text database services:

Health & Mental Health

• Cochrane Library - free, gold standard research on all aspects of health and healthcare. See below for a brief video on how to use the Cochrane Library.

• PubMed Central - free online digital archive of the U.S. National Institute of Health. Covers biomedical and life sciences journals.
• TRIP Database - Online clinical search tool designed for health professionals, with an emphasis on evidence-based medicine.  Requires registration (free).

Law

The following are specialist legal databases which cover all aspects of law and legal research. Students who are not studying law but who need to consult legal materials may be able to find all they need by consulting the resources on the Law for Non-Lawyers page.

• Westlaw UK - this is a legal database which provides the full text of Acts of Parliament, Statutory Instruments (SIs) and legal cases. Unlike free Government websites (such as the Office of Public Sector Information, OPSI) Acts and SIs on Westlaw are regularly updated and will show which sections have been amended and which repealed. Westlaw also contains an index to articles in legal journals with links to the full text where available. It is the only database which indexes some core law-related social studies journals including: Child & Family Law Quarterly, ChildRight,Family Law, Magistrate and the Prison Service Journal.
• LAWTEL - a legal database which provides updated information every 24 hours. It includes legal cases, Acts of Parliament, Parliamentary Bills, Green and White papers  and an index of legal journals (with materials back to 1980).
• LEXIS Library - this is the most comprehensive but also the most complex of all the legal databases. It provides access to UK and European law reports and contains legal cases, legislation, a legal journals index, a newspaper article database and a current awareness service.

News & Media

• NewsBank Newspapers UK - full text newspaper articles from all the national and many of the local UK and Ireland newspapers for more than the last 10 years.
• Access World News - full text newspaper articles from around the world including Africa, Asia, Europe, former Soviet Union, Pacific Rim, Central and South America and the Middle East. Good for researching a wide variety of international developments related to politics, economics, culture and business.
• UK Press Online - a growing digital library of British newspaper archives from the 19th century to the present day with emphasis on the tabloid press. There is also a specific collection of British newspapers during World War Two featuring the Daily Worker, Fascist Week, Blackshirt and the Yorkshire Post.

Social Care

• Social Care Online - free database maintained by the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE). It contains records of books, journals, magazines, audio-visual materials and websites and covers all aspects of social welfare, social work and social care. The Research Register for Social Care lists ongoing and completed research projects on all aspects of social care. Click the Available Online box (after you've searched) to limit yourself to only electronically available material.

Social Sciences

• Sage Premier - gateway to searching 480 electronic journals published by Sage with full text. Covers all aspects of the social sciences, criminology, social welfare, sociology and humanities.

General

• Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) - covers free full text scholarly journals in all subjects and languages.