This tutorial will show you a few tips and tricks to help you navigate our large collection of library databases.
We'll begin from our A-Z list of library websites. You can find this page linked from the Kingsborough library website, under A-Z List of Databases. See highlighted portion of the screenshot below.
When clicking on this page, you'll immediately see a list of databases in alphabetical order. There are a lot of them -- over 175. You can always simply scroll and click to find the database you need, but if you are feeling overwhelmed, there are a few ways to narrow things down!
Sorting by subject might be the most convenient way to narrow down your database choices. The subject list is a dropdown menu on the far left side of the page. The default choice is "All Subjects".
Click on the subject you are researching (such as anthropology, English, or religion), or simply start typing in the name in the text box that appears when you click on "All Subjects. For this example, type or click "Nursing".
Once you click on a subject, you'll immediately see that the list is narrowed down only to databases best suited for research in this subject.
On top you'll find a list of "Best Bets" -- databases which you may want to try first! Below that, you'll see a list of further entries that may also be relevant. Try out a few different databases while searching as each will bring back different results.
Now click "clear filters" to see our next limiter.
Many ignore the next limiter, but it's actually really useful. To begin with, we listed our most popular databases right at the top of the list. These are go-to resources for almost any project here at Kingsborough.
You can limit your databases by format, such as newspaper, scholarly article, or book review. As an example, a student might need an article on a topic such as anorexia or an aspect of history, but do not need an in-depth scholarly article that is written by and for experts in that field. Instead, a well-researched magazine or newspaper article might be more suited to your needs.
Try limiting your Database type to Magazine articles!
This one might be more useful for librarians or professors familiar with vendors, but you can also filter by database vendor.
Our largest database vendor is EBSCO, which has dozens of databases for you to try. Each of these databases will be in the same format, but will contain a different selections of articles and other materials. You can actually even search them all at once. But that's a matter for another tutorial!
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