You’re ready to start gathering sources—but only because you’ve laid the groundwork. By doing some preliminary reading and creating research questions to guide you, you’ve set yourself up to search with focus and purpose. This step isn’t about grabbing the first articles that pop up—it’s about choosing the most relevant, reliable sources to help you build a clear, cogent essay.
OneSearch is a tool that allows users to search almost all of a library's resources in one place, including books, articles, journals, and more. OneSearch is a useful place to start research, and can be especially helpful when you're exploring a topic and want to see what's available in and through the MJC Library.
The MJC Library subscribes to more than 65 databases that are available 24/7 from any device connected to the internet. These databases contain articles from newspapers, magazines, scholarly journals, as well as books, videos, audio files, images, and more. Database can be searched in a variety of ways, and sources are easily downloaded, emailed, and printed. Another feature popular with students: source citations are automatically generated by databases.
Although OneSearch provides access to sources within MJC Library's databases, there are many reasons to include individual databases in your search strategy. These reasons include:
Advanced search capabilities
Individual databases often have more advanced search options than OneSearch, which can help you narrow down your search results.
More comprehensive results
Searching individual databases can often yield more thorough results than using OneSearch, which may not search every item in every database.
Access to specific resources
Individual databases can provide access to specific types of resources. For instance, if you are looking for topic overviews you can search Gale eBooks, if you want to identify pro/con arguments surrounding current issues you can look at CQ Researcher or Issues & Controversies. We have databases supporting historical research, databases for nursing students, and databases focused on literary criticism.
To access our full list of databases, just click on the link below. If you need help identifying the right database for your topic, do not hesitate to contact an MJC Librarian.
If you need materials (books, articles, recordings, videos, etc.) that you cannot find in the MJC Library catalog, use our interlibrary loan service.
You can also find articles on the web. Using Google Scholar can help ensure that you're finding scholarly information. However, many of these articles are not free and you must evaluate them (remember the CRAAP test) carefully.