Finding Articles and more: Anthropology Databases
Though journal articles covering issues of interest to anthropologists and anthropology students can be found in resources from virtually all subject areas, the databases below are often the best places to start for anthropology courses and topics:
- Anthropology Plus: the most anthropology-specific database, but only the first stop for multi-disciplinary topics. Combines two resources - Anthropological Literature from Harvard and Anthropological Index from the Royal Anthropological Institute in the UK.
- Academic Search Complete: large, multidisciplinary and easy to use; includes lots of full-text articles.
- SOCIndex: On EBSCO, the same platform as Academic Search Complete, but focused on sociology and social sciences, including anthropology.
- Sociological Abstracts: another sociology source that also includes many scholarly/academic anthropology journals and topics.
- AnthroSource: developed by the American Anthropological Association (AAA), this specialized source includes current issues of AAA peer-reviewed journals and archives of all AAA journals; limited indexing and search capabilities; full text of almost all publications.
- JSTOR: provides full-text access to backfiles of important scholarly journals in many disciplines. Use the "Advanced Search" screen to limit your search by discipline. WARNINGS: The latest 3 years or more are NOT usually available, and searches must be done either in the title or the full text of the articles.
- Google Scholar: a simple and powerful way to broadly search for scholarly articles, reports and books. If you are a novice searcher, however, it may not be easy to decipher the list of results. For off-campus use set your Scholar Preferences.
For news, magazine and journal articles of Canadian origin or covering Canadian subjects (but not necessarily academic or anthropological material) start with these general sources:
- Canadian Newsstream: full-text access to Canadian daily newspapers including the Gazette.
- Eureka.cc: full text access to English and French language Québec & Canadian newspapers , magazines, newswires, blogs and broadcast transcripts.
- ProQuest Combined Canadian: indexes a wide variety of Canadian sources, from newspapers, transcripts and newsletters, to academic journals and theses.
- Canadian Periodical Index (CPI-Q): newspapers, magazines, journals.
- Factiva: Full text of international newspapers (including Canadian), transcripts and newswires (license for only one user at a time).
En français
- Eureka.cc: full text access to English and French language Québec & Canadian newspapers , magazines, newswires, blogs and broadcast transcripts.
- Érudit: academic journal articles, theses, books and book chapters - mostly from Québec.
- Repère: magazine and academic journal articles, mostly from Québec. No full text.
Below is a sampling of additional useful sources for anthropology research:
Specialized databases:
See also Sociology Databases, First Peoples Studies and Research Guides in all other subject areas.
Multi-subject databases:
- Web of Science: includes social sciences, humanities, arts. Offers citation searching.
- Scopus: large multidisciplinary database. also offers citation searching.
REVIEW or SURVEY journals try to give an overview of a topic or research area, and provide long lists of references. Here are two to try:
- Annual Review of Anthropology: Note that your searches here will by default include Annual Reviews in multiple subject areas, not just Sociology.
- Oxford Bibliographies: Anthropology: Can provide brief introductions, and extensive lists of important sources in many subject areas within anthropology and more.
- Sociology Compass, Geography Compass and Religion Compass (useful for overlap and instersections with anthropological concepts as there is no Anthropology Compass)
ENCYCLOPEDIAS can provide that all-important background and context for research papers. Here is a sampling:
- Open Encyclopedia of Anthropology
- International Encyclopedia of Anthropology
- Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology: for overlap between sociological and anthropological concepts
- Encyclopedia of Gender and Society (2009)
- Gale eBooks and Oxford Reference Online search multiple subject encyclopedias simultaneously.
- Encyclopedia of Race and Racism
NOTE: there are many more encyclopedias, reviews or other reference sources (online and in print) that may be appropriate, depending on your topic -- See our Encyclopedias guide for more.
- ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Full Text: Over two million doctoral dissertations and masters theses (90% from North America) published since 1861, although most of the full text starts from 1997.
NOTE: See also Concordia University Library's guide on How to find theses.