When you have gained some background information on your topic and figured out which search terms to use, you are ready to begin searching for information sources. You will want to find a mixture of books and periodical articles.
All Gumberg Library electronic resources can be accessed by entering your Multipass username and password, and authenticating using DUO, when prompted.
We use books (whether print or electronic) because a book gives a comprehensive picture of a subject, going into great detail on many aspects of it. A book will summarize information from possibly hundreds of other resources. A few good books on a topic can form the core of your research. The tool we use at the Gumberg Library to find books is the DUQSearch online catalog.
Go to the Gumberg Library homepage.
The search box for DUQSearch is in the middle of the page. We recommend you use the Advanced search, since it will give you many more search options than will the Basic search.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, our books stacks in Gumberg Library are closed, meaning you cannot go searching for your own books. You must request them online. They will be pulled for you and you will pick them up at our front desk.
The following link will take you to a document that will show you how to request print books online:
https://guides.library.duq.edu/BorrowingDuringCovid/request
The Gumberg Library now has access to over 825,000 electronic books through a number of databases, including the following:
Click here to learn more about eBook collections
To use these databases off-campus, you will need to enter your Multipass username and password.
While a book will give a comprehensive picture of a subject, even the newest book will not have the most current information on a topic. To find out the latest developments on a subject we use articles from periodicals (magazines, newspapers, trade publications, and journals). There are a large number of databases that can be consulted to find articles (many in full text).
Three very good places to start looking for articles are ProQuest Central, Academic Search Elite, and Google Scholar. These databases cover all subjects. The full text is provided for many of the articles found in ProQuest Central and Academic Search Elite. Google Scholar can be made to display a link to full text in Gumberg Library databases. Click the last link below to see how to do this.
Video tutorial on using Academic Search Elite
To use the databases above off-campus, you will need to enter your Multipass username and password.
Link Google Scholar to other library databases
ProQuest and Academic Search Elite are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to databases available at the Gumberg Library. We offer access to over 340 different databases, great for going into greater depth in particular subject areas. These databases are arranged in two ways: by subject and alphabetically by the name of the database. Below is a link to take you to both database lists.
To use these databases off-campus, you will need to enter your Multipass username and password.
Because the Gumberg Library can access so many databases, sometimes it is hard to know which one to use. Click the link below to go to a webpage for suggestions on which to use in specific academic disciplines and majors.
Many of the Gumberg Library databases supply not only bibliographic citations for articles, but full text as well. To learn about how to know in if full text is available in any our our resources, click the link below for a page that describes this in detail.
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