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Essential Research Databases

Also Useful

Tips for Searching Online Databases

Multiple Key Words or Phrases: Place in separate boxes or separate by Boolean operators. Don’t string them together all on one line as you would in Google.

Phrase Search: Use quotation marks to indicate a phrase search (“classroom assessment”  "distance learning"  "cultural literacy")

Truncation: Add an asterisk * to the end of a term to retrieve results with multiple endings
For example: educat* will retrieve records for education, educators, educational, etc.

Boolean Operators can help you expand or narrow your search

AND: (“curriculum” AND “middle school”) Narrows your search so that only records containing both search terms come back to you.
OR: (teacher OR instructor) Broadens your search so that all records containing the word teacher as well as all records containing the word instructor come back to you.
NOT: "alternative schools" NOT “charter schools” will brings back records about alternative schools and none that are about charter schools.

Off Campus Access

You will be asked to supply your Saint Mary's user name and password to access subscription databases from off campus.  Problems?  Use our 24/7 chat or contact the Help Desk (507-457-7800 / helpdesk@smumn.edu) or the Library (507-457-1562 / lib@smumn.edu)