The MVCC Library databases are a tremendous resource. They provide free access to thousands of magazines, newspapers, academic journals, reference materials, and even videos that are not available through Google or other search engines. Academic Search Complete is often a go-to database for library users. It’s the one that is being searched if you use the Articles search box on the library homepage.
Academic Search Complete is pretty great and it covers all subject areas. But sometimes when searching, it can be helpful to use a more specialized database. This is where the All Databases page on the library website comes in handy. Here you will find an A to Z list of all of the library’s ~100 databases. You’ll also be able to use the subject groupings of databases.
So, if you’re researching currents events, or sports information, or films, you may want to use the News databases. This way you’ll be searching only newspapers. If you’re looking into something like management practices at McDonalds, you could go into the Business grouping and select Business Source Premier. Or if you’re working on a feasibility study or a business plan, Reference Solutions is going to give lots of information about potential competitors and clients. The blurbs for these databases help you choose the best one for your research need.
By now you might be thinking that this is getting a little complicated. There are so many different databases, you must need to be an expert to know how to search them all. Not at all. Business Source Premier for example, works just like Academic Search Complete, as do many of the library’s databases. Plus, to help you get started using various databases, librarians have created help guides for many of the library’s databases. Just look for the link at the end of the database description.
Are you interested in a database guide that we haven’t created yet? Let us know and we’ll make one!