List of academic databases and search engines

This page contains a representative list of major databases and search engines useful in an academic setting for finding and accessing articles in academic journals, institutional repositories, archives, or other collections of scientific and other articles. As the distinction between a database and a search engine is unclear for these complex document retrieval systems, see: the general list of search engines for all-purpose search engines that can be used for academic purposes the article about bibliographic databases for information about databases giving bibliographic information about finding books and journal articles.

Note that "free" or "subscription" can refer both to the availability of the database or of the journal articles included. This has been indicated as precisely as possible in the list:

List

Name Discipline(s) Description Access cost Provider(s)Academic SearchMultidisciplinarySeveral versions: Complete, Elite, Premier, and Alumni EditionEBSCO PublishingAerospace & High Technology DatabaseAerospace, aeronautics, astronauticsProQuestAerospace & High Technology Database African Journals OnLine (AJOL)MultidisciplinaryScholarly journals published in AfricaAfrican Journals OnLineAgeLineSociology, gerontologyIncludes information on aging-related topics, including economics, public health and policyEBSCO PublishingAGRICOLA: Agricultural Online AccessAgricultureProduced by the United States National Agricultural Library. Free access provided by NAL. Subscription access provided by ProQuest, OVID.AGRICOLA (Ovid)AGRIS: Agricultural databaseAgricultureCovers agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, aquatic sciences and fisheries, human nutrition, extension literature from over 100 participating countries. Material includes unique grey literature such as unpublished scientific and technical reports, theses, conference papers, government publications, and more.Produced by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. AGRISAiriti IncMultidisciplinaryAiriti IncAnalytical AbstractsChemistryRoyal Society of ChemistryAnalytical Sciences Digital LibraryAnalytical chemistryNational Science Digital Library and the Analytical Chemistry Division of the American Chemical SocietyAnthropological Index OnlineAnthropologyIndex only (no abstracts or full-text)Royal Anthropological InstituteAnthropological LiteratureAnthropologyMaintained by Harvard University. Non-Harvard access provided by OCLCArachneArchaeology, art historyGerman languageGerman Archaeological Institute & the University of CologneArnetminerComputer scienceOnline service used to index and search academic social networksTsinghua UniversityArts & Humanities Citation IndexArts, humanitiesPart of Web of ScienceClarivate AnalyticsarXivPhysics, mathematics, computer science, nonlinear sciences, quantitative biology and statisticsRepository of electronic pre-prints of papers in the fields of mathematics, physics, astronomy, computer science, quantitative biology, statistics, and quantitative finance.Cornell UniversityASCE LibraryCivil engineeringAll civil engineering disciplines including structural engineering, geotechnical engineering, transportation engineering, construction engineering, environmental engineering, engineering mechanics, sustainability, water resources, irrigation. hydraulics, hydrology, waterways, urban planning, cold regionsAmerican Society of Civil EngineersAssociation for Computing Machinery Digital LibraryComputer science, engineeringAssociation for Computing MachineryAstrophysics Data SystemAstrophysics, geophysics, physicsHarvard UniversityATLA Religion DatabaseReligious studiesProvides information on topics such as biblical studies, world religions, church history, and religion in social issuesATLA Catalog AULIMP: Air University Library's Index to Military PeriodicalsMilitary scienceAir UniversityBASE: Bielefeld Academic Search EngineMultidisciplinaryBielefeld UniversityBeilstein databaseOrganic chemistryAvailable from Elsevier under the product name Reaxys Bibliographie de civilisation médiévale Medieval studies A bibliography of monographs on the Middle Ages. As of 2018, it contains about 65,000 fully classified bibliographic records. Produced by the University of Poitiers. Available from Brepols Publishers.Biological AbstractsBiologyA complete collection of bibliographic references covering life science and biomedical research literature published from more than 4,000 journals internationally.Available from Thomson ReutersBiological Abstracts at Thomson Reuters BioOneBiology, ecology, and environmental scienceA full-text aggregation of more than 180 scientific journals publishing current research in Biodiversity Conservation, Biology, Ecology, Environmental Science, Entomology, Ornithology, Plant Science, and Zoology.Available from BioOneBook Review Index OnlineBook reviewsThomson GaleBooks in PrintBooksR.R. BowkerCAB AbstractsApplied life sciencesBibliographic information service providing access to applied life sciences literature.CABICEEOLHumanities and Social Sciencerepository of full text indexed documents, in the form of journal articles, eBooks and grey literatureCentral and Eastern European Online Library GmbH (CEEOL GmbH), Frankfurt am Main Chemical Abstracts ServiceChemistryAmerican Chemical SocietyChemisches Zentralblatt Structural DatabaseScience, chemistryweb-based retrieval application that provides language independent access to the information contained in Chemisches ZentralblattAvailable from the InfoChemChemXSeerChemistryThe project seemed abandoned in 2018.Pennsylvania State UniversityChinese Social Sciences Citation IndexSocial sciencesNanjing UniversityChinese Social Science Citation Index (in English) CINAHL: Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied HealthNursing, allied healthEBSCOCiNiiMultidisciplinaryDatabase of 15 million articles in the Japanese language from 3600 journalsNational Institute of InformaticsCHBD: Circumpolar Health Bibliographic DatabaseMedicineUniversity of CalgaryCitebase SearchMathematics, computer science, physicsSemi-autonomous citation index of free online researchUniversity of SouthamptonCiteULikeComputer scienceCiteSeerComputer scienceReplaced by CiteSeerX.Pennsylvania State UniversityCiteSeerXComputer science, statistics, mathematics, becoming multidisciplinaryPennsylvania State UniversityCivil engineering databaseCivil engineeringA bibliographic database covering all of ASCE's publications since 1872American Society of Civil EngineersCochrane LibraryMedicine, healthcareIncludes reviews of research to promote evidence-based healthcare.Wiley InterscienceCogPrints: Cognitive Sciences Eprint ArchivesScience (general)University of SouthamptonThe Collection of Computer Science BibliographiesComputer scienceAlf-Christian AchillesCompendexEngineeringElectronic version of Engineering Index.ElsevierCOnnecting REpositoriesMultidisciplinaryOpen UniversityCurrent Index to StatisticsStatisticsLimited free searchAmerican Statistical Association and the Institute of Mathematical StatisticsCurrent ContentsMultidisciplinaryPart of Web of Science. Contains 7 discipline-specific subsets.Clarivate AnalyticsDirectory of Open Access JournalsJournals The Directory Of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) lists more than 10,000 open access journals (September 2014) in multiple research areas.Lund Universitydblp computer science bibliographyComputer science Comprehensive list of papers from major computer science conferences and journalsProduced by Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz Center for Informatics and University of Trier, GermanyEconBizEconomics EconBiz supports research in and teaching of economics with a central entry point for all kinds of subject-specific information and direct access to full texts.Produced by the German National Library of Economics – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (ZBW)EconLitEconomicsThe American Economic Association's electronic database, the world's foremost source of references to economic literature.Produced by the American Economic Association. Available from EBSCOhost, ProQuest, OVID, and AEA.EMBASEBiomedicine, pharmacologyBiomedical database with a strong focus on drug and pharmaceutical research.ElsevierEMBASE ERIC: Educational Resource Information CenterEducationEducation literature and resources. Provides access to over 1.3 million records dating back to 1966.Produced by the United States Department of Education. Also available by subscription from OCLC, CSA.Europe PMCBiomedicalA database of biomedical and life sciences literature with access to full-text research articles and citations. Includes text-mining tools and links to external molecular and medical data sets. A partner in PMC International.EMBL-EBIFSTA – Food Science and Technology AbstractsFood science, food technology, nutritionThe world's leading database of information on food science, food technology and nutritionProduced by IFIS Publishing. FSTA can be accessed through EBSCOhost, IHS Inc., Ovid, Proquest Dialog, STN and Web of Science.Gale (publisher)Multidisciplinary Cengage GroupGENESISWomen's historyDescriptions of women's history collections from sources in the UK, as well as women's history websites.London Metropolitan UniversityGeoRefGeosciencesAmerican Geosciences InstituteGlobal HealthPublic healthSpecialist bibliographic, abstracting and indexing database dedicated to public health research and practice.CABIGolm Metabolome DatabaseMass spectrometryThe Golm Metabolome Database (GMD) is a reference mass spectra library of biologically active metabolites quantified using gas chromatography (GC) coupled to mass spectrometry (MS).Golm Metabolome DatabaseGoogle PatentsPatentsGoogleGoogle ScholarMultidisciplinaryGoogleHCI BibliographyHuman-computer interfaceAn electronic bibliography for most of HCI for researchers, developers, educators, and studentsGary PerlmanHubMedMedicineAn alternative interface to the PubMed medical literature databaseAlf EatonIEEE XploreComputer science, engineering, electronicsIEEEIndex CopernicusMultidisciplinary scienceScientific journal database – the IC Journal Master List – contains currently over 2,500 journals from all over the world, including 700 journals from Poland. The journals registered in this database underwent rigorous, multidimensional parameterization, proving high quality. The Ministry of Science and Higher Education acknowledged the IC Journal Master List by placing it on the list of scored databases, for being indexed in IC JML journals get additional points in the Ministry's evaluation process.Index Copernicus InternationalIndex TheologicusTheology, religious studiesInternational scientific open access bibliography for theology and religious studies. The IxTheo lists monographs, collected works, journals, essays, encyclopaedia articles, reviews as well as databases, archive materials, literary remains, blogs, podcasts, research data and other electronically available content from all fields of theology. The analysis is carried out across languages, media and denominations. In addition to current theological literature in numerous languages, the database also contains historical titles dating back to the 16th century.