Summary: Databases are important because they contain scholarly academic material, such as journal articles, that have undergone peer-review before being published. There are two types of database:

1. full text containing materials from one publisher, e.g. ScienceDirect from Elsevier
2. bibliographic containing journals from a number of different publishers worldwide. Not all material contained in these is available in full text - only the journals we have paid for.

IMPORTANT: never rely on searches across full text databases as your only source of material for research or literature reviews. It is important that you are aware of published material from a number of different publishers worldwide so you must also conduct searches across bibliographic databases relevant to your subject interest.

There are two ways to look for materials relevant to your subject interest.

1. Use the Library's Subject A-Z Index.
2. Use our resource discovery tool Primo. The resources listed on Primo include electronic databases, e-journals, Internet search engines, subject gateways and more.

Guides and help on how to identify databases relevant to your subject are available at the end of this section.

STEP 1 IMPORTANT: Before you do anything in Primo you must set up your personal computer to work properly with databases from off campus. If you haven't already done so please follow instructions on how to set up off campus access to electronic materials.

STEP 2: Go to the Primo login page at http://primo.abdn.ac.uk:1701/ and login using your University computer username and password (find link at top right hand side of the page).

STEP 3: Follow the quick guide on how to use Primo.

You will see from the guide that it is possible to use the Primo search interface to look for journal articles contained in cross-searchable databases. IMPORTANT: researchers are strongly advised to use the results of these searches as indicators of potentially useful databases and link out to them to repeat the search. Primo is not capable of producing the same number and quality of results as searches conducted on native interfaces where database-specific search rules can be applied.

Guides and help on how to identify databases relevant to your subject

Library Guide: QG PRO001 Primo - a Quick Guide (short quick guide)

Worksheet: Using Primo

Web page: Setting up access to databases from off-campus

IT Service Desk: servicedesk@abdn.ac.uk; tel. +44 (0)1224-273636