Commonwealth Honors College: Getting Started With Library Research

Your research topic may intersect with other disciplines. While it's always good to start with subject-specific databases, there are times when you will want to expand your searching to see if researchers are publishing about your topic in related disciplines.

Below are the ways to find databases and resources in other disciplines.

The Research Guides will contain resources beyond just databases, while the Databases A-Z list can help you narrow down databases by subject and format.

For instance, resources in the disciplines of Psychology and Sociology often contain education topics and art and architecture databases can contain engineering materials topics. 

Library staff at the UMass Libraries have developed research guides by subjects, topics and collections. You can look at various guides and see what resources librarians recommend for those subjects, which includes databases where you can find articles, reliable websites, collections of materials by formats such as data and more.

We have more than 600 databases on a wide variety of topics. The spectrum ranges from databases that have a very specific topic to databases that are multidisciplinary.

The easiest way to find databases with articles on your research topic is to use the Databases A-Z List. Use the link below to go the list.

You can use the following filters to find databases based on subject and format:

1. Click on the Subjects filter to narrow down to a specific subject. If you select Multidisciplinary, you will get databases that cover a wide variety of publications.
2. Click on the Types filter and select the Articles filter. This narrows down the list to databases with articles (abstract only and full-text).
3. Finally, click Search.

TIPS

• You can select multiple subjects. Once you've picked one subject, you can go back and select another to add.
• If you use the filters, make sure to click on Clear Filters before switching to another subject and/or format.
• Try exploring different subjects to find databases that have other discipline perspective on your topic. For instance, you might want to explore psychology databases if you're researching the effects of a specific learning theory.
• If there's a database you want to bookmark, make sure to bookmark the link from the Databases A-Z list.