Meet with a Librarian
Book a research consultation with one of your MSMU librarians!
Email Us - library@msmu.edu
Your question will be answered by a librarian within 24 hours.
Call Us
Coe - Chalon: 310.954.4370
McCarthy - Doheny: 213.477.2750
Drop In
Stop by the Circulation Desk at either library and ask in person.
Enter your search terms in the Find field on the Basic Search screen.
Click the Search Options link, if you would like to use any of the optional Limiters or Expanders. To close the Search Options, click the link again.
Select a specific search mode, such as "Find all of my search terms," or "SmartText Searching."
Apply Limiters such as Full Text or Publication type; or use search options that expand your search, such as "Apply related words."
Click the Search button. The Result List displays.
The search field is displayed above the Result List. Your search terms, limiters and expanders are retained.
To revise your search, you can apply the limiters under Limit To on the left or click the Show More link to view all available limiters.
Using the Basic Search
Place words within quotation marks to search for exact phrases (“to be or not to be”).
Use Boolean operators to construct a better search (“tea trade” AND china).
Full-Text
Checking the Full-text limit will restrict your search to only search and retrieve records containing full-text.
Peer-Reviewed
Checking the Peer-reviewed limit will restrict your search to only search and retrieve records that are indexed in peer-reviewed journals. Peer-reviewed journals are a subset of scholarly journals and are defined as journals that undergo a review process where other experts (peers) in the field review the work before it is published in the journal. Peer-reviewed journals are also commonly known as refereed journals.
With Google Scholar you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts, and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities, and other web sites.
Search Google Scholar from here:
To do this from the Google Scholar homepage:
Research Databases collect articles, books and media items from a multitude of sources that researchers can find via a single interface. Each database covers different subject areas.
For broader searching, use QuickSearch (see above) and find articles, books and films in most of MSMU's databases from one convenient search box.
For narrower searching (i.e. a specific poem or poet, a certain historical era or event in history, etc.), use MSMU's specialized databases.
An extensive collection of journals and books in the Arts and Sciences, including classical studies, ecology, economics, history, language and literature, mathematics, music, art and architecture, cultural studies, film, folklore, performing arts, philosophy, political science, sociology, and religion.
Check out Mount Saint Mary's University's digital primary source collections in JSTOR!
Provides digital humanities and social sciences content, including electronic journal and book collections from leading university presses and scholarly societies. Check out Muse in focus for curated bibliographies on newsworthy topics.
Includes more than 650,000 biographical entries covering international figures from all time periods and areas of study. Users can search for people based on name, occupation, nationality, ethnicity, birth/death dates and places, or gender, as well as by keyword and full text. It offers authoritative reference content alongside, videos, audio selections, images, primary sources, and magazine and journal articles from hundreds of major periodicals and newspapers.
Digital library of books and journals scanned by a partnership of major research institutions and libraries.
The experience and impact of African Americans as recorded by the news media from 1976 to the present.
This resource provides access to the largest collection of Spanish-language, historical newspapers from Hispanic publishers in the U.S. Content covers 1808-1980 and includes translations.
Based on James P. Danky's bibliography, AAN provides access to 280 U.S. newspapers from more than 35 states published by or for African Americans. Topics include life in the Antebellum South, the Jim Crow Era, the Great Migration, Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights movement, and more.
For more information, check out this short video.
Primary bibliographic database containing citations to articles regarding historical coverage of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Indexes journals and citations of book and media reviews. Some full text is available.
Simultaneously searches , Gale LitFinder, Something About the Author and Gale eBooks. Provides access to full-text literary works (novels, plays, poetry and short stories), author biographies, literary movement information, literary work overviews and more.
LitFinder provides access to literary works and authors throughout history and includes more than 150,000 full-text poems and 800,000+ poetry citations, as well as short stories, speeches, and plays. The database also includes secondary materials like biographies, images, and more.
Includes 500,000 primary texts 1,200 scholarly journals and thousands of ebooks and reference works. It also includes 1,300 video and audio recordings and the full text of 14,000 dissertations. ProQuest One Literature provides rare diverse primary sources as well as curated author/movement pages to help contextualize literary studies.
Note: ProQuest One Literature incorporates Literature Online (LION)
Produced by the Modern Language Association (MLA), the MLA International Bibliography is the definitive index for the study of language, literature, linguistics, rhetoric and composition, folklore, and film, covering scholarly publications from the early 20th century to the present. International in scope, it includes citations to journal articles, books, articles in books, series, translations, scholarly editions, websites, and dissertations, with links to full text in JSTOR, Project MUSE, and other resources. The database also includes the MLA Directory of Periodicals and the MLA Thesaurus, a proprietary, searchable collection of thousands of subject terms, and personal names used in indexing the bibliography
Features a selection of magazines and academic journals (everything from Anglican Journal to Zygon) covering religion and the related areas of philosophy and anthropology. Can be used to study theological approaches to social issues and learn about the impact that religion's historical impact on literature, the arts, and language. Index coverage from 1980 onwards and full-text coverage from 1983 to the present.
This database combines indexing from the ATLA Religion Database (RDB) with ATLA's online full-text collection of over 600 major religion and theology journals.
Take some of the guess work out of searching for articles!
If you have an article - or another document - in pdf format, you can find other articles on a similar topic with the click of a button. You will also learn how to use key words and topic terms effectively.
Or you can choose a work of literature or biblical book and find articles related to specific passages
Located at Doheny on the 2nd floor in the "literary journals" area
Kenyon Review (PS659k)
Poetry (PR4142p)
Yale Review (PR1y)
Sewanee Review (PN50s)
Poets & Writers (PS128p)
The Writer (P1w)
Located at both campuses
Calyx: a Journal of Art and Literature by Women (PS508c)
Rosebud (PS536.2.r57)
Located at Chalon on the 1st and 4th floor periodical areas
Field: Contemporary Poetry and Poetics (PN1010f)
Obsidian: Literature of the African Diaspora (PS153o)
The Explicator (P1e)
Parody (PN6149.P3)
Open-Access Journals and Magazines are available to read for free on the Worldwide Web without a subscription. Some are born digital (no print edition exists); others are print journals that offer free online access.
Annalemma (literary and arts)
Poetry Magazine (poetry)
Poets & Writers (publishing, literary agents, grants and contests)
Narrative Magazine (stories, poems, essays, cartoons, contests)
Triquarterly (Northwestern University's literary magazine)
McSweeney's Internet Tendency (parody and satire)
Provides access to the five top US national and regional newspapers, including The New York Times, Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune. Content is available by 8am each day and provides archives stretching as far back as 1985.
With Google Scholar you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites.
Search Google Scholar from here:
Be sure to link Google Scholar to the MSMU Library to get free access to many library resources.
To do this from the Google Scholar homepage:
Virtually all journals that MSMU has full-text access to online are indexed in our E-Journal search. Simply type in the title, hit search, and you will find all the databases where you can access the journal.
If you don't have the full citation, try using Google Scholar to find the article. Check out Google Scholar Search Tips here.
If you cannot find the article using the first 2 steps, we probably do not have immediate full-text access to the article, but that doesn't mean that we cannot get it for you! Try requesting it through Document Delivery.
Articles are usually delivered within 2-3 business days.Sometimes called scholarly, peer-reviewed, academic, or even "refereed', these terms all refer to journals that require review by a group of experts in the field before an article can be published. These experts are looking for things like appropriate methodology, proper research, and citations, advancements to the field, etc.
When searching for articles, look for the option to narrow your search by peer-reviewed, scholarly, or ‘refereed’ materials. There will most likely be a box you can check to limit your search.
Learn more about the peer-review process in this video from the University of Kansas: Peer Review In Three Minutes
