Scholarly databases (also called bibliographic databases) are organized collection of digital records for published literature, including journal articles, conference proceedings, patents, books, newspaper articles, and reports. Bibliographic databases support the advanced and reproducible searching required for evidence synthesis projects.
You can access hundreds of databases through the CMU Libraries' website. You can find the full list here and filter by subject:
By accessing databases through the links on this webpage, you will have access to CMU Libraries' licensed holdings (particularly important if you are off-campus).
The following search engines do not support the advanced and reproducible searching that many bibliographic databases do but they can still be useful as a supplementary resource for evidence synthesis projects and for finding literature for other types of research projects.
The following are good databases for finding literature in most subject areas.
Academic database covering peer-reviewed journals, book series, and conference proceedings - includes scientific, medical, technical and social science topics, with emphasis on citation analysis. Scival feature requires registration but is free to CMU affiliates.
Arts & Architecture
Biological Sciences, Health and Medicine
Chemistry
Full text of journals of the American Chemical Society.
Computer Science
Full text of journal articles, conference proceedings, and reviews published by the Association for Computing Machinery.
Technical literature in electrical engineering, computer science, and electronics from IEEE journals and conference proceedings. Also includes all current IEEE standards.
Economics, Management, and Public Policy
Education
Engineering
The most comprehensive bibliographic database of scientific and technical engineering research available, covering all engineering disciplines. To limit to Compendex, check the appropriate box at the top.
Technical literature in electrical engineering, computer science, and electronics from IEEE journals and conference proceedings. Also includes all current IEEE standards.
Articles in communications, computer science, engineering, environmental science, IT, operations research, physics and robotics.
Psychology, Social & Decision Sciences, and other Social Sciences
1923-present. Unbiased research reports on timely topics. Each report provides an introduction, overview, background, current situation, outlook chronology, pro/con, bibliography, etc. Keyword search for additional reports also show links to other relevant reports. Database Guide.