Databases of social sciences

There are two main platforms which contain databases focused on social sciences, Esbcohost and ProQuest. Their main features are showcased below.

Both platforms contain some subject-specific (sub)databases and more general ones.

Ebscohost databases: Academic search premier, SocINDEX, PsycINFO, EconLit, Business source elite

Ebsco maintains one generic database of its own: Academic search premier. It’s quite small for a multidisciplinary database. Through Ebsco platform, it is possible to use more specialized databases as well, either one database individually or together with other databases.

SocINDEX for social work, sociology, social psychology and related topics/areas/disciplines (?).
PsycINFO (APA) for behavioral sciences, mental health and psychological aspects of various topics.
EconLit for the fields of economics, e.g. capital markets, economic forecasting, health economics (?), monetary theory, urban economics.
Business Source Elite for marketing, management and other business studies.

The selection of databases is done using this link:

You can access to any Ebsco database through UEF Primo and change the selection any time during the session.

Boolean operators: as usual. Proximity operator: Nn (near; no specific order); Wn (within; given order). Truncation: middle and end. Wildcards: # replaces one or zero characters; ? replaces one character. Phrase: quotation marks recommended. Stemming and spelling: as usual. Search fields to start with: Select a field (searches authors, subjects, keywords, all title info including source title and abstracts, may vary by database.

Technical characteristics of Ebsco databases.

Search query example

Search query example about workers’ well-being when working remotely.

Refining/limiting the search (filters)

Don’t limit to full-text, as it excludes available peer-reviewed articles.
Peer-reviewed (scholarly) journals, academic journals, when you want to exclude non-scholarly articles, conference proceedings, book chapters etc. which some of the databases contain.
Publication year, language

Video tutorials

(links open in new tabs):

Using search terms, limiting, editing, saving – ignore the last minute, not applicable in UEF library:
Academic Search Premier General Tutorial (5:56)

Setting notifications about new results:
Creating a Search Alert in EBSCOhost (1:28)

Use of thesaurus terms:
Browsing Subject Terms in EBSCOhost Databases (2:23)

ProQuest Social Science Premium Collection

ProQuest consists of several sub-collections, which all contain several individual databases. These can be searched separately or together.

ProQuest Social science premium collection broadly covers different fields of social sciences; sociology, social policies, social services, social work, political science and public policy, criminal justice, education, linguistics, library and information science etc.

Since the results come from different databases, there might be duplicates or even triplicates in the search results.

It’s good to begin with this broader collection, and to filter the search query by databases afterwards. You may also choose the combination of databases before a search.

The selection of databases is done using this link:

You can access to any ProQuest database through UEF Primo and change the selection any time during the session.

Boolean operators: as usual. Proximity operator: NEAR/n (no specific order) and PRE/n (given order). Truncation: middle and end; maximum of 5 characters are replaced; truncated term doesn’t count in relevancy order. Wildcards: ? replaces one or zero characters. Phrase: as usual. Stemming and spelling: as usual. Search fields to start with: Anywhere except full-text – NOFT.

Technical characteristics of Pro Quest databases.

Search query example

Refining/limiting the search (filters)

Don’t limit to full-text, it excludes available peer-reviewed articles.
Peer-reviewed, academic journals, if you want to exclude non-scholarly sources or conference proceedings, book chapters, reports, government publications, dissertations.
Publication year, language if needed.
Filter by more focused database

ProQuest limits.

Video tutorials

(linsk open in new tabs)

Search fields and thesauri:
Advanced search (5 min)

Search terms and operators:
Search strategy tips (7 min)

All tutorials by Proquest: ProQuest platform libguides

Read more about the additional, but still essential databases by field of science:

Business studies

There are two more specific and business/economics-focused databases, Business Source Elite and EconLit on Ebscohost platform. They have lots of overlapping sources, so it is practical to search those parallelly: choose databases. See above under the Ebscohost databases heading.

Econlit covers broader document types in addition to journal articles, e.g. dissertations, working papers and books from all fields of economics.

Scopus is also worth searching from, especially for data science topics. If necessary, filter with subject areas: Business, Management and Accounting or Economics, Econometrics and Finance. This is based on the journal categorization.

Business studies information resources (opens in a new tab).

Geography and environmetal policy

History

Jstor

Jstor Arts & Sciences I Collection (link opens in a new tab) database is the best UEF-specific database for history, even though it covers multiple other disciplines as well. It covers journal articles from as early as the 19th century – some documents date back even from 1665.

For many journals, the most current volumes are not available, so you will have to search for them through some other database.

The database contains both journals articles and books, but only the articles are available as full texts in UEF.

Boolean operators: use capital letters. Proximity operator: two words enclosed in quotation marks, followed with ~n. Truncation: *, the root word must contain at least three letters. Wildcards: ? replaces one character, the root word must contain at least three letters. Phrase: as usual. Stemming and spelling: dostoyevsky~ also finds dostoevsky, dostoievski, dostoevsky etc. the first letter always remains the same. Search fields to start with: Default is All fields, change to Author, Item Title, Abstract, Caption.

Technical characteristics of Jstor database.

Video tutorials

(links open in new tabs):

Searching, limiters, editing:
Advanced search on JSTOR (7:46)

AI-search with an article:
How to use Text Analyzer to make a reading list (3:23)

Muse

PROJECT Muse database is rather small (only 35 history journals), but still useful. Most of the history journals are starting from late 1990s or early 2000s, but there are journals from 1920s onward as well.

The database contains both journals articles and books, but only the articles are available as full texts in UEF.

A screen capture of Project Muse front page. Text: From the start page, click the magnifier icon to open the Advanced search page. An arrow pointing to magnifier after the search row on the right.

Boolean operators: as usual. Proximity operator: none. Truncation: as usual. Wildcards: none. Phrase: as usual. Stemming and spelling: none. Search fields to start with: Content.

Technical characteristics of Muse database.

Search query example

A sreen capture of search query "second world war" AND (finland OR finnish) [in Title]. Type the query on the left corner of the page. Use 'All content' as target. The results apeear on the right side of the page. When results are shown, filters for refining the results will appear.

Video tutorials

(links open in new tabs):

Searching, limiting, editing, saving:
How to do a Search on Project MUSE (3:27)

Search history, saving, exporting:
Creating a MyMUSE Account (3:28)

Law and legal science

In law and legislation, the primary legislation is an essential source. This information can be found from Edilex– ja Finlex-services (Finnish law) and from EUR-Lex and Curia (EU law). Only parts of the Finnish legislation is translated in English (can be found for example from English pages of Open Access Finlex). In addition, there are some services containing Finnish textbooks, like Verkkokirjahylly and Verkkokirjahylly (Päivittyvät hakuteokset). See the complete list of law-related databases on the library’s website.

Edilex

Besides the up-to-date legislation of Finland, Edilex contains (among other things) legislative history, case law from various Finnish court instances and a vast digital law library. You can find the most relevant Finnish law journals from recent years in full text and legal articles specially written for Edilex by Finnish experts. When searching you don’t have to truncate words or use AND operators (they are assumed automatically).

Academic Core Collection by HeinOnline

Academic Core Collection HeinOnline contains many databases, but the most important of them is Law Journal Library, which you should select at the start page. This is the first database to start when looking for international articles in law and legislation.

A screen capture of Heinonline front page. Under 'Browse databases by name' select 'Law journal library'.

Link to Law Journal Library on HeinOnline homepage.

HeinOnline contains more than 3 000 law and law-related periodicals as full texts from the late 19th century onward. In some cases the most recent years are missing. Document types include journal articles, periodicals, legal classics and case law.

Sometimes you get only bibliographical information about articles. In that case you can try to find full text access to the journal in question through UEF Primo or Westlaw.

Boolean operators: use capital letters. Proximity operator: w/n. Truncation: as usual. Wildcards: ? replaces one character. Phrase: as usual.

Technical characteristics of HeinOnline database.

Search query example

A screen capture of Heinonline. the link for Advanced search is under the quick search line. In advanced search there is a search query: "environmental law" [in Text] AND finnish OR finland [in Article title].

Video tutorials

(links open in new tabs)

How to get started in HeinOnline (4:27)

How to search in HeinOnline (6:40)

Complete list of HeinOnline tutorials

Westlaw

Westlaw is an online legal research service which contains more than 40 000 databases. It is primary aimed for US lawyers and legal professionals and therefore concentrates in US case law.

Document types include case law, legislation, law reviews, treaties, news material etc. The full text coverage varies by publication, but is available at least from 1970s onward.

For law students in Finland the most useful part of Westlaw is the database World Journals, which contains 984 law journals from USA, 40 from United Kingdom, 12 from Canada and few more from United Arab Emirates, Europe, Australia and Far East (in 2022). These journals are not listed in UEF Primo journal search, so you must check for them from Westlaw directly.

A screen capture of Westlaw front page. There is a sidebar on the right. Under 'Related legal' select 'World journals'. Open Advanced search page from the upper right corner: a text 'advanced search' after the quick search line.

Link to World Journals on Westlaw homepage. Advanced search is recommended for searching.

Westlaw is the only way to access many US law journals, and you might also find access to volumes which are missing in HeinOnline or some other databases. However, the user interface is very old fashioned and you can’t for example browse through issues or volumes of the journals, you can only make searches for relevant articles with keywords.

And even though you get full text of articles, they are not in PDF. The whole content of the article (including page numbers, references, tables and possible pictures) is available though.

Boolean operators: & = AND, % = NOT. Proximity operator: /n. Truncation: as usual. Wildcards: as usual. Phrase: as usual. Stemming and spelling: as usual, can be turned off with # (as prefix).

Technical characteristics of Westlaw database.

Search query example

Social and health management

Sociology, social policy, social work, social psychology

If multidisciplinary and large databases give too many results, there are a few more focused databases:

SocINDEX (Ebscohost), sociology, social work and related fields

a broad spectrum of sociological studies; encompassing all subdisciplines and closely related areas of study. These include abortion, criminology & criminal justice, demography, ethnic & racial studies, gender studies, marriage & family, political sociology, religion, rural & urban sociology, social development, social psychology, social structure, social work, sociocultural anthropology, sociological history, sociological research, sociological theory, substance abuse & other addictions, violence and many others.
document types: journal articles, reviews, conference proceedings, books, theses, trade articles

Link to SocIndex in UEF Primo (opens in a new tab)

PsycINFO (EBSCOhost), behavioral science and mental health.

included is information on the psychological aspects of related fields such as medicine, psychiatry, nursing, sociology, education, pharmacology, technology, linguistics, anthropology, business, law and others.
document types: journal articles, books, book chapters, dissertations.

Link to PsycInfo in UEF Primo (opens in a new tab).

Sociological Abstracts (ProQuest) and its companion file, Social Services Abstracts

cover the international literature of sociology, social work and related disciplines in social and behavioral sciences
document types: journal articles, book reviews, books, book chapters, dissertations, conference papers, and working papers.

It is possible to search those one by one, or after a search filter by database.
Link to Sociological Abstracts in UEF Primo (opens in a new tab)
Link to Social Services Abstracts is not available in UEF Primo, but you can choose the database after opening Sociological Abstracts or any other ProQuest database..

Video tutorials

(links open in new tabs):

Search technique:
Searching in SocINDEX (2:44)

How to Use Sociological Abstracts (4:38)

Thesaurus, cited references:
Analysing search results in SocINDEX (2:12)

It’s good to also remember the multidisciplinary databases, Scopus and Web of Science. It’s possible to filter the results by subject area/category, or search only the Web of Science edition SSCI, Social Sciences Citation Index. Scopus covers more articles/journals on social sciences than Web of Science.

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