Bibliographic databases give you an overview of the literature in a subject area. They provide an index to journal articles and conference papers from a wide range of publishers. Many of these databases provide an abstract of a paper, but NOT ALWAYS the full text. Key databases for Nutrition and Dietetics include:
- Medline (OVID) This link opens in a new windowIs a key database for international literature on clinical medicine and related disciplines. It can be searched using Medline's own thesaurus of Medical Subjects Headings (MeSH) as well as keywords. It indexes articles in medical, dental and biomedical journals and has a strong American influence being published by the National Library of Medicine.
- EMBASE This link opens in a new windowIs a European biomedical and pharmacological database. It can be searched using Embase's own thesaurus of subject headings called Emtree as well as keywords. It is strong in its coverage of drug and pharmaceutical research, pharmacology and toxicology.
- Nutrition and Food Sciences DatabaseInformation across the food chain supporting academic and industrial research, with tools to help researchers manage their knowledge base and identify important studies, save the research information key to their work, and keep up with new developments.
- Scopus This link opens in a new windowIs a multidisciplinary, keyword searching database indexing journals, books, book chapters and conference proceedings. It covers the broad fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities.
- Web of Science This link opens in a new windowIs a keyword searching, multidisciplinary database indexing journals, books and conference proceedings. The most useful part of the Science Citation Core Collection for Nutrition is the Science Citation Index Expanded database.
- Proquest Natural Science This link opens in a new windowThe Collection includes key agriculture, aquatic, science, biology, dentistry and nutrition databases. The Biological Sciences Database, the most useful to Nutrition, indexes scholarly journals, trade and industry journals, magazines, technical reports, conference proceedings and government publications from around the world.
- CAB Abstracts This link opens in a new windowIs an English-language abstracts information service covering Agriculture & Food Science, Biology & Life Sciences. Indexing academic journals, books, conference proceedings and reports.
- CINAHL (EBSCO) This link opens in a new windowOffering complete coverage of English-language nursing journals and publications from the National League for Nursing and the American Nurses' Association, this database covers nursing, biomedicine, health sciences librarianship, consumer health and 17 allied health disciplines. It allows you to search CINAHL and MeSH subject headings as well as keywords.
- PsycINFO This link opens in a new windowCovers interdisciplinary research in the psychological, social, behavioral, and health sciences. It indexes journal articles, book chapters, book reviews, and editorials. You can search the database using the APA subject headings as well as keywords.
All databases should have a help section with tips and tricks on how to get the best out of using them, so do make yourself familiar with them. You also may find the following helpful:
- Nutrition and Food Sciences Database SupportAn introductory video on keyword searching.
- ProQuest supportVideo tutorials of help and support. Useful when learning how to use 'Linguistics and language behaviour abstracts' or 'ERIC' via ProQuest
- Scopus supportHelp and support on how to access and use Scopus
Try Google Scholar for finding scholarly literature on the internet. Google Scholar is particularly good at finding Open Access (freely accessible) scholarly information but a great deal of important literature is still only available through the databases and electronic journals to which the Library subscribes. You should, therefore, use Google Scholar in addition to (and not instead of) our databases and electronic journals.
