Using Databases A-Z

The Databases A-Z is an alphabetical list of platforms and websites. Generically called databases, users can find information of diverse types and formats. Some databases provide full text access; others offer abstracts or bibliographic information. Most database content is discoverable in MetSearch. However, there are some art websites, statistics and legal information sets which may not display in MetSearch.

All the databases in the Databases A-Z can be searched individually by title, subject, or resource type to find different types of information sources that you can use for your assignments and research. The databases available include content such as ejournals, ebooks, newspaper articles, reports, images, video and more.

All the information and content from the Databases A-Z is available via remote electronic access. Under each database is a short description of its content. Click on the database name to access the database you would like to search. You can filter databases by subject or resource type, or you can use the search box to search database descriptions.

Star Tip! Look out for the databases most frequently used by Cardiff Met students, where you see this sign:

Star Tip! Look out for databases that are newly acquired or being evaluated for a future subscription by the Library, where you see these signs:

If you are searching for journal articles for an academic assignment or a literature review, you can search one of the multi-discipline databases such as Scopus or ProQuest Central. These databases can be searched for journal articles on a range of subject areas.

There are several databases available for different subject areas covering journal articles and other really useful information resources. Some databases that are suitable for subject-focused study include:

• Art & Design – Art Full Text, Vogue Archive, Worth Global Style Network
• Business & Management – Business Source Complete, Emerald Insight
• Education – Arts & Humanities Database, Education Research Complete, ProQuest One Literature, Drama Online
• Health Sciences – Anatomy.TV, Cochrane Library, Embase, Medline (via OVID), PsycARTICLES, PsycINFO
• Law & Policing – Lexis+ UK, Westlaw UK, HeinOnline, Law Trove
• Sport – SPORTDiscus, SportBusiness, Human Kinetics Library
• Technology – ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, O’Reilly

Search for articles using the publisher’s database platforms. These include:

• Cambridge Core - full text access to books and journals published by Cambridge University Press.
• Nature - international journal publishing peer-reviewed research in all fields of science and technology.
• Oxford University Press - multi-disciplinary journals from OUP.
• Sage Journals - multi-disciplinary journals from Sage.
• ScienceDirect - journals and books published by Elsevier.
• Springer Link - journals and books from Springer.
• Taylor & Francis Journals - multi-disciplinary journals published by T&F.
• Wiley Online Library - multidisciplinary collection of journals published by Wiley.

BrowZine allows you to access and browse ejournals from different publishers in one simple interface, keeping you up to date with scholarly information for your chosen subject area(s). With BrowZine you can build your own personalised Academic Bookshelf of ejournals, save articles to read offline, set up alerts for content updates in individual titles, and download citations to reference managers such as Zotero and RefWorks.

See our BrowZine guide for more information on how to download and use it.

If you are looking for Ebook Collections, you can search them individually.

Ebook Central is our biggest ebook database and includes access to Academic Complete, a collection of over 200,000 ebooks.

Law Trove is a collection of key law textbooks from Oxford University Press.

O'Reilly contains ebooks and other resources in the subject areas of computing, mathematics and engineering.

For primary texts, try ProQuest One Literature, which contains the full text of thousands of works of poetry, drama and prose.

VLeBooks provides full text access to ebooks across all subject areas.

For many topics you need information such as statistics, company reports or standards. These can be found on the following databases, amongst others:

• British Standards Online contains full text access to the most comprehensive and authoritative source of British, and adopted European and international, standards.
• DataGardener provides comprehensive financial data and business information on UK companies.
• Fitch Connect provides financials and ratings on thousands of banking and financial institutions.
• Mintel is a global market intelligence agency providing access to market research reports.
• Occupational Health and Safety Information Service contains official guidance, legislation, best practice and standards for the UK.
• Overton is a searchable index of policy documents, guidelines, think tank publications and working papers.
• Statista is a global data and business intelligence platform with an extensive collection of statistics, reports, insights and infographics.

The University also subscribes to image databases to support educational use. These include:

• Berg Fashion Library contains over 17,000 images relating to fashion and design.
• Bridgeman Education is a dedicated image database providing images sourced from the world’s leading museums, galleries and contemporary artists.
• British Cartoon Archive is an archive of British newspaper cartoons.
• Vogue Archive contains the entire run of US Vogue reproduced in high-resolution colour page images.
• Worth Global Style Network is a consumer trend forecaster offering research, style analysis, images and news.

Please be sure to check the copyright guidance / terms and conditions carefully before you reproduce any images for any other purpose. For further guidance on Copyright and Licensing, consult the Library website or Contact Us.

There are a wide range of audio-visual databases available with resources useful to support your studies.

Box of Broadcasts (BoB) is the on-demand TV and radio service for education.

Sage Research Methods Video: Practical Research and Academic Skills provides explanatory videos supporting the essential skills needed to complete research.

For Education and Drama check out BBC Shakespeare Archive and ProQuest One Literature for poetry and plays, as well as Teacher's TV - a collection of 3,500+ education videos.

Check out HS Talks: The Business & Management Collection, a multimedia resource for teaching and learning.

For newspaper articles you can search European Newsstream database for full text of major UK news publications. We also have access to the Financial Times Online and Times Digital Archive.

Sage Research Methods Foundations provides an introduction to methods and research terms for those who are new to research in general or to a particular method.

For advice and referencing guidelines use Cite Them Right Online, a popular referencing textbook for creating your citations.