List of academic databases and search engines
This article contains a representative list of notable databases and search engines useful in an academic setting for finding and accessing articles in academic journals, institutional repositories, archives, or other collections of scientific and other articles. Databases and search engines differ substantially in terms of coverage and retrieval qualities. Users need to account for qualities and limitations of databases and search engines, especially those searching systematically for records such as in systematic reviews or meta-analyses. As the distinction between a database and a search engine is unclear for these complex document retrieval systems, see:
- the general list of search engines for all-purpose search engines that can be used for academic purposes
- the article about bibliographic databases for information about databases giving bibliographic information about finding books and journal articles.
The terms "free", "subscription", and "free & subscription" will refer to the availability of the website as well as the journal articles used. Furthermore, some programs are only partly free (for example, accessing abstracts or a small number of items), whereas complete access is prohibited (login or institutional subscription required).
The "Size" column denotes the number of documents (articles, publications, datasets, preprints) rather than the number of citations or references. The database itself should be the primary source of statistics, and if it is not accessible, the independent estimates released as journal papers should be. Notably, Google Scholar does not offer such detail, but the database's size has been calculated.
Operating services
This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.
| Name | Provider(s) |
|---|---|
| Academic Search[3] | EBSCO Publishing |
| Aerospace & High Technology Database | ProQuest |
| African Journals OnLine (AJOL)[4] | AJOL |
| AgeLine[3] | EBSCO Publishing |
| AGRICOLA: Agricultural Online Access[5] | NAL (free access NAL, subscription access ProQuest, OVID) |
| AGRIS: Agricultural database[6] | FAO |
| Airiti | Airiti Inc. |
| Analytical Abstracts[7] | RSC |
| Analytical sciences digital library[8] | NSDL and ACS |
| Anthropological Index Online[9] | RAI |
| Anthropological Literature[10] | Harvard University (non-Harvard access provided by OCLC) |
| Arachne[11] | DAI & University of Cologne |
| ArchiveGrid | WorldCat |
| AMiner[12] | Tsinghua University |
| Arts & Humanities Citation Index[13] | Clarivate Analytics |
| ASCE Library | ASCE |
| Association for Computing Machinery Digital Library | Association for Computing Machinery |
| Astrophysics Data System[14] | Harvard University |
| ATLA Religion Database[15] | EBSCO Publishing |
| AULIMP: Air University Library's Index to Military Periodicals | Air University |
| BASE: Bielefeld Academic Search Engine[16] | Bielefeld University |
| Bibliographie de civilisation médiévale | University of Poitiers (available from Brepols Publishers) |
| Biological Abstracts[17] | Thomson Reuters |
| BioOne | BioOne |
| Book Review Index Online | Thomson Gale |
| Books In Print | R. R. Bowker |
| CAB Abstracts | CABI |
| Chemical Abstracts Service | ACS |
| Chinese Social Science Citation Index[18] | Nanjing University |
| CINAHL: Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health[19] | EBSCO |
| CiNii[20] | National Institute of Informatics |
| CHBD: Circumpolar Health Bibliographic Database[21] | University of Calgary |
| CiteSeerX[22] | Pennsylvania State University |
| Civil engineering database | American Society of Civil Engineers |
| Cochrane Library | Wiley Interscience |
| COnnecting REpositories (CORE)[23] | Open University |
| Crossref[24] | Crossref |
| Current Contents | Clarivate Analytics |
| DeepDyve | DeepDyve |
| Dimensions[25] | Digital Science & Research Solutions Ltd |
| Directory of Open Access Journals[26] | Lund University |
| DBLP[27] | Leibniz Center for Informatics and University of Trier |
| EconBiz[28] | ZBW- German National Library of Economics– Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (ZBW) |
| EconLit[29] | American Economic Association (available from EBSCOhost, ProQuest, OVID, and AEA) |
| Ei Compendex | Elsevier |
| EMBASE[30] | Elsevier |
| ERIC: Educational Resource Information Center[31] | United States Department of Education (available by subscription from OCLC, CSA) |
| Europe PMC[32] | EMBL-EBI |
| FSTA – Food Science and Technology Abstracts | IFIS Publishing (available via EBSCOhost, IHS Inc., Ovid, Proquest Dialog, STN and Web of Science) |
| GeoRef[33] | American Geosciences Institute |
| Global Health[34] | CABI |
| Google Scholar[1] | |
| HAL | CNRS's Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe (CCSD) |
| IEEE Xplore | IEEE |
| Index Copernicus[36] | Index Copernicus Ltd |
| Information Bridge: Department of Energy Scientific and Technical Information | DOE (OSTI) |
| Informit | RMIT Training Pty Ltd (RMIT Training) |
| IngentaConnect | Ingenta |
| Indian Citation Index[37] | ICI |
| IARP[38] | Volunteer Collaboration |
| Inspec | IET |
| INSPIRE-HEP | CERN, DESY, Fermilab, SLAC and IHEP |
| International Directory of Philosophy | Philosophy Documentation Center |
| International Medieval Bibliography[39] | Leeds University (available from Brepols Publishers) |
| International Nuclear Information System (INIS)[40] | International Atomic Energy Agency |
| International Philosophical Bibliography | Université Catholique de Louvain (available from Peeters Publishers) |
| Internet Archive Scholar | |
| J-Gate[41] | Informatics India Ltd |
| JournalSeek | Genamics |
| JSTOR: Journal Storage | JSTOR |
| Jurn | David Haden |
| L'Année philologique | Société Internationale de Bibliographie Classique (available from Brepols Publishers) |
| LexisNexis | Reed Elsevier |
| The Lens[42] | Cambia |
| Lingbuzz | University of Tromsø |
| Linguamatics | Linguamatics |
| Logeion | University of Chicago |
| MathSciNet | American Mathematical Society |
| MEDLINE | NLM |
| Mendeley[43] | Elsevier |
| Microsoft Academic[44] | Microsoft |
| MyScienceWork | MyScienceWork Inc |
| National Criminal Justice Reference Service | United States Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs |
| National Diet Library Collection | National Diet Library |
| OAIster[45] | OCLC |
| OpenEdition.org | Cléo (UMS 3287) CNRS EHESS University of Avignon |
| OpenGray | Institut de l'information scientifique et technique |
| ORCID[46] | ORCID Inc. |
| Paperity[47] | Paperity Sp. z o.o. |
| Philosophy Documentation Center eCollection | Philosophy Documentation Center |
| Philosophy Research Index | Philosophy Documentation Center |
| PhilPapers | PhilPapers |
| POIESIS: Philosophy Online Serials | Philosophy Documentation Center |
| Project MUSE | Project MUSE, Johns Hopkins University Press |
| PsycINFO | APA |
| PubMed[48] | NIH, NLM |
| PubMed Central (PMC)[49] | NIH, NLM |
| Publons[50] | Clarivate Analytics |
| PubPsych | Leibniz Institute for Psychology Information |
| Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature | H. W. Wilson Company |
| RePEc: Research Papers in Economics[51] | IDEAS: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
EconPapers: Örebro University School of Business |
| ResearchGate | ResearchGate GmbH |
| Rock's Backpages[52] | Backpages Ltd |
| Russian Science Citation Index | Scientific Electronic Library |
| SafetyLit | SafetyLit Foundation |
| SciELO | FAPESP, CNPq and BIREME |
| Science.gov | United States Government |
| Science Citation Index[53] | Clarivate Analytics |
| ScienceOpen | ScienceOpen Inc. |
| Scientific Information Database (SID) | Scientific Information Database |
| SCIndeks - Serbian Citation Index | CEON/CEES - Centre for Evaluation in Education and Science |
| Science Direct | Elsevier |
| Scopus[54] | Elsevier |
| SearchTeam | Zakta |
| Semantic Scholar | Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence |
| SNAC (Social Networks and Archival Contexts) | |
| Social Science Citation Index | Clarivate Analytics |
| Socolar | China Educational Publications Import and Export Corporation |
| SSRN: Social Science Research Network | Elsevier |
| Sparrho | Distylled Ltd. |
| SpringerLink | Springer |
| Unpaywall[55] | Our Research |
| Ulrich's Periodicals Directory | ProQuest |
| VET-Bib | Cedefop |
| Web of Science[54] | Clarivate Analytics |
| WestLaw | Thomson Reuters |
| WorldCat[56] | OCLC Inc. |
| WorldWideScience | DOE (OSTI) |
| Zasshi Kiji Sakuin: Japanese Periodicals Index | National Diet Library |
| Zentralblatt MATH | FIZ Karlsruhe |
| The Zoological Record | Clarivate Analytics |
| DiVA (open archive) | Uppsala University |