Library Research Guides: Geography: Start Here

General Databases

IU Libraries subscribes to many databases where you can find a variety of articles. Some databases are very general, and can be a good place to start your research. Others are more specific for when you're ready for narrower results (to view these, see "Databases by Topic" to the left). The following are my top recommendations for starting your research!

Web of Science
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Web of Science is great especially for Physical Geography. One of my favorite features is the citation tracking that allows you to see how often a paper has been cited, and by who. This is a nice way to start to learn about major authors and papers in a field.
OneSearch@IU
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OneSearch searches the library catalog and a wide variety of databases. This can be great for getting a lot of results, but sometimes gives too many options to be useful. I like using OneSearch to help discover which journals or publications might be relevant to my topic.
Scopus
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Really helpful for finding citations, though the full text isn't always linked or available.
Covers the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities. Comprised of 21,000 titles from more than 5,000 international publishers. Exporting data to Reference Managers such as Mendeley, RefWorks and EndNote, tracking citations with Citation Overview/Tracker, analyzing journal performance with Journal Analyzer and alternative journal impact metrics SNIP and SJR are some of its unique features.
JSTOR
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Provides searchable full-text of historical runs of important scholarly journals in the humanities, arts, sciences, ecology, and business.
JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization established with the assistance of The Mellon Foundation, provides complete runs of hundreds of important journal titles in more than 30 arts, humanities, and social science disciplines. These scholarly journals can be browsed online and searched, and the page images can be printed for those available in full-text. The IUB Libraries subscribe to current content for only some titles available through JSTOR.

All journals in JSTOR start with the first volume. Many include content up to a "moving wall" of 3-5 years ago, although some journals have a fixed ending date for their content in JSTOR. Please check individual journals for exact dates of coverage.

For information about access to this resource for IU alumni, contact the Indiana University Alumni Association.
ProQuest Social Sciences
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Allows users to simultaneously search a collection of ProQuest Social Science databases.
GeoRef
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Index to earth science articles in journals and books, as well as books, maps, government publications, conference proceedings, technical reports, theses and dissertations.
The GeoRef database covers the geology of North America from 1666 to the present and the geology of the rest of the world from 1933 to the present. The database includes references to all publications of the U.S. Geological Survey. Masters' theses and doctoral dissertations from U.S. and Canadian universities are also covered.

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