Religion 12: Finding Articles
Winter Study 2008
To find scholarly articles on a topic, you will need to use a periodical index. Most of the Libraries' indexes are available as online databases, but in some cases you will need to consult a print index for older materials. Each periodical index focuses on a specific subject area or body of literature. Because most indexes are produced at a national level, they may include many magazines and journals not available at Williams. See below for more information about locating articles at Williams and borrowing from other libraries.
Multi-disciplinary Databases
Expanded Academic Index (1980-Present)
Multi-disciplinary index to scholarly academic and general interest periodicals.
General Reference Center (1980-Present)
A multidisciplinary index to general interest magazines, reference books, and newspaper articles covering a wide range of topics.
Search Hint for the above databases: For a broad topic, such as yoga, use the Subject Guide search and click the link for subdivisions to see ways of narrowing the topic by particular aspects such as health aspects, physiological aspects, etc. You can search both databases (and other Gale databases) at the same time by choosing the Change Databases link.
Google Scholar (Coverage Varies)
Multi-disciplinary index to peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts, and other scholarly literature. Includes the full-text of publications freely available on the web and citations for materials published by commercial publishers. Includes links to the library's electronic journal collections and FRANCIS. Stronger coverage in the sciences. Results are ranked by Google's determination of relevance.
Subject-Specific Databases
Religion Index (1949-Present)
An index for articles, books and essays covering religious topics based on religions around the world, and religious perspectives on various issues. Created by the American Theological Library Association (ATLA).
Philosopher's Index (1940-Present)
An index to citations and abstracts of scholarly articles, books, book chapters, dissertations and book reviews on philosophy and related fields, including aesthetics, epistemology, ethics, logic, and metaphysics.
Search Hint for the above databases: You can search Religion Index and Philosopher's Index at the same time by clicking the Choose Database tab and choosing the two databases (Religion Index is listed as ATLA Religion Database and Philosopher's Index is at the end of the list).
Bibliography of Asian Studies (1971-Present)
Index to scholarly articles, books and book chapters in Asian history and culture. Includes citations to all articles from the 100 most-used journals in Asian studies. See also print index (Sawyer REF DS5 .B52) covering materials published from 1941 to 1970.
PubMed (Generally 1949-Present, with some older material)
Database, provided by the National Library of Medicine, containing citations to medical literature.
Health Reference Center (1995-Present)
Electronic collection of general interest health and fitness magazines, medical and professional periodicals, reference books and pamphlets.
View list of databases in all disciplines
Locating Articles
While searching articles databases, you will want to determine whether the Williams College Libraries own the journals containing the articles you wish to read.
Many databases have this 
icon. When you click on the icon in the database, it will attempt to find an electronic version of the text in our collection. If it doesn't find an electronic version, it will give you a screen with a link to FRANCIS and Williams ILL. The FRANCIS link sends a pre-formatted search into FRANCIS to find print or other electronic subscriptions in our collection. The Williams ILL link provides an automatically filled-in interlibrary loan request form to get a copy from another library.
If the database you are using does not have the Find Text icon, you can do a journal title search in FRANCIS or use Citation Linker.