Guides: Middle East Studies and Research @ Pitt: Databases

Key Interdisciplinary Databases for Starting Research

Below are several good general interdisciplinary databases that are useful when searching for articles about global themes and issues related to continents and individual countries.

Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window
This scholarly collection provides journal coverage for most academic areas of study, including biological sciences, economics, communications, computer sciences, engineering, language and linguistics, arts and literature, medical sciences and women's studies. This is an EBSCOHost database.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
JSTOR (Journal Storage) is a digital library that provides online access to academic journals, books, and primary sources in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. It is a trusted source for scholarly research and provides access to over 6,000 academic journals, more than 2 million images, and over a thousand books. The platform has a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to search and access high-quality, peer-reviewed content. JSTOR also features advanced tools for research and discovery, including citation analysis and alerts for new content. It is a valuable resource for scholars, students, and researchers in the academic community.
Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Provides full text and citation access to information in the reference, business, medical, and legal disciplines. [Formerly titled: Academic Lexis-Nexis]
Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
Access to over 380 humanities and social sciences journals from over 60 scholarly publishers.

Political and Socioeconomic Databases

Databases are great sources for articles because databases offer the high quality, scholarly information that most professors want. The databases below are more focused and subject specific so they are excellent starting points for your research.

Africa-Wide Information This link opens in a new window
Combines databases sourced from Africa, Europe and North America to form a multidisciplinary aggregation of unique, extensive coverage of African research and information. This includes content from South African Studies, African Studies, and African HealthLine. Incorporates previous titles South African Studies and the Africa Wide NiPad databases.
Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window
Business Source Complete provides full-text business journals and hundreds of scholarly, peer-reviewed journals covering all aspects of business; marketing, management, economics, finance, accounting, international business and more.
eHRAF World Cultures This link opens in a new window
HRAF is an acronym for Human Relations Area Files, a non-profit institution founded in 1949 at Yale University. HRAF is a consortium of educational, research, and cultural organizations, and government agencies; its mission is to encourage and facilitate the study of human culture, society, and behavior.
GenderWatch This link opens in a new window
GenderWatch is a full text database of publications that focus on the impact of gender across a broad spectrum of subject areas. GenderWatch contains archival material, in some cases as far back as the 1970's with additional archival material continually added.
GreenFILE This link opens in a new window
Comprised of scholarly and general interest titles, as well as government documents and reports, GreenFILE offers perspective on the positive and negative ways humans affect the ecology.
Historical Abstracts (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Historical Abstracts is your complete reference guide to the history of the world from 1450 to the present (excluding the United States and Canada, which are covered in America: History and Life).
Military & Government Collection This link opens in a new window
Military and Government Collection provides full text from over 320 military and general interest publications. Designed to bring current news to all branches of the military and matters relating to the military and military life.
OECD iLibrary This link opens in a new window
OECD iLibrary is the online library of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) featuring its books, papers and statistics. The OECD consists of 30 member countries sharing a commitment to democratic government and the market economy. With active relationships with some 70 other countries, NGOs and civil society, it has a global reach. Best known for its publications and its statistics, its work covers economic and social issues.
PAIS Index This link opens in a new window
Since its establishment in 1914, PAIS (Public Affairs Information Service) has chronicled issues in the public debate through highly selective coverage of a wide variety of sources. The PAIS Archive provides historical perspective on many of the 20th century's public and social policies.
Policy File Index This link opens in a new window
Covers all public policy issues and it draws its content from public policy think tanks, university research programs, research organizations and publishers.
SocINDEX This link opens in a new window
SocINDEX is a comprehensive sociology database featuring citations with subject headings from a sociology specific thesaurus. It contains informative abstracts for more than 590 core journals dating back to 1985.
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts is building on the merged backfiles of Political Science Abstracts and ABC POL SCI, published by ABC-CLIO. The database provides citations, abstracts, and indexing of the international serials literature in political science and its complementary fields, including international relations, law, and public administration / policy.

Arts & Humanities Databases

The databases below are useful when searching for Global Studies topics and articles related to the arts and humanities. The country, theme or topic you select may affect the databases you choose. You can find additional databases by checking Databases by Subject.

African Writers Series This link opens in a new window
Heinemann's African Writers Series publishes key texts of modern African literature. This online edition includes over 250 volumes of fiction, poetry, drama and non-fictional prose, including works by Chinua Achebe, Ama Ata Aidoo and Steve Biko.
Communication & Mass Media Complete This link opens in a new window
Communication and Mass Media Complete (CMMC) incorporates CommSearch produced by the National Communication Association and Mass Media Articles Index produced by Penn State.
Humanities International Index This link opens in a new window
Humanities International Index provides cover-to-cover indexing and abstracting for over 1,900 titles with coverage dating as far back as 1925. HII contains more than 1.6 million records and includes all data from American Humanities Index plus bibliographic records from a multitude of international journals, books and reference works.
Music Periodicals Database This link opens in a new window
Draws its current content from more than 375 international music periodicals from over 20 countries, and also indexes feature music articles and obituaries appearing in The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Performing Arts Periodicals Database This link opens in a new window
Draws its current content from more than 130 international performing arts periodicals from 9 countries, and also indexes feature performing arts articles and obituaries appearing in The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Government- and UN-Related Databases

These databases, produced by the U.S. government and the United Nations, provide a wealth of information about the area and related topics including statistical information.

Digital National Security Archive This link opens in a new window
The Digital National Security Archive contains over 40,000 U.S. government documents declassified under the Freedom of Information Act. These documents derive from the CIA, the FBI, the Defense Department and numerous other government agencies.
Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) This link opens in a new window
Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) is a collection of English-language transcriptions of media content from around the world collected by the United States' intelligence community between 1941-1996. This collection provides an international perspective on world events.
United Nations Digital Library This link opens in a new window
Primary index to United Nations documentation published since 1979 (or earlier for selected major documents) and indexed by the Dag Hammarskjold Library or the Library of the UN Office in Geneva. It includes the catalogue of the non-UN collections of both libraries and also provides access to detailed voting records of resolutions adopted by the General Assembly and the Security Council.
United Nations Official Document System (ODS) This link opens in a new window
The United Nations Official Document System (ODS) supplies copies of documents published by the United Nations. Full text is available for all documents published since 1993 and select documents published from 1946-1993.

University of Pittsburgh Library System

Course & Subject Guides

Middle East Studies and Research @ Pitt

Christopher Lemery

Key Interdisciplinary Databases for Starting Research

Political and Socioeconomic Databases

Arts & Humanities Databases

Government- and UN-Related Databases