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Multidisciplinary Databases
These databases are good starting places for contemporary and some historical writing in periodicals. They tend to be wide in scope, but not necessarily deep in coverage.
- ProQuest This link opens in a new window
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Search platform for over 120 databases, from the AFI Catalog to Worldwide Political Science Abstracts. Includes scholarly articles, primarily in the humanities and social sciences, as well as newspapers and dissertations.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window
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Full text back issues of core scholarly journals, browsable and searchable across multiple disciplines. Coverage starts with first issue, with moving wall for most recent 3-5 years. UCLA has access to selected JSTOR e-books only. JSTOR also includes primary source collections, including images from Artstor.
- Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
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Full text of current issues (from about 1990) of scholarly journals published by university presses, chiefly in the arts, humanities and social sciences. Browsable by discipline and full-text searchable across all disciplines. UCLA has access to Muse e-books published from 2017-present, plus a selected number of other e-book titles.
- Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
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Indexes major journals in many disciplines. - MasterFILE Premier This link opens in a new window
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Multidisciplinary database with full text and indexing from reference works and magazines dating as far back as 1975. Includes biographies and several magazines of interest to media scholars, including TV Guide indexing. - Readers' Guide Retrospective: 1890-1982 (H.W. Wilson) This link opens in a new window
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Provides indexing of general-interest periodicals published in the United States and reflects the history of 20th century America - Alternative Press Index This link opens in a new window
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Contains indexing for over 700 alternative, radical and left periodicals, newspapers and magazines covering cultural, economic, political & social change. Includes 1969-present.
Core Film and Television Studies Databases
These more specialized tools index journals core to the study of film and television, including more international and professional practice-focused journals and magazines.
- Performing Arts Periodicals Database This link opens in a new window
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Articles and reviews from a broad spectrum of the arts and entertainment industry - including dance, drama, theater, stagecraft, circus, opera, pantomime, puppetry, magic, performance art, film, television, and more. Former database title: International Index to Performing Arts (IIPA) Full Text. - MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
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Indexes worldwide publications on literature, language, linguistics, folklore, film, television, and theater from 1923 to the present. See also the MLA Directory of Periodicals. - Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive (EIMA) This link opens in a new window
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EIMA is an historical archive of major trade and consumer magazines in film, television, music, radio, and theater, from their inception to 2000. Includes weekly Variety, Hollywood Reporter, American Cinematographer, Back Stage, Billboard, Broadcasting, Picturegoer, Screen International, Spin, and more. UCLA has access to parts I, II and III of this database.
- FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals This link opens in a new window
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Searches film and television articles in the International Index to Film Periodicals (1972-current) and Treasures from the Film Archives, which contains silent film-era listings from archives.
Anthropology and History Databases
Because of their connection to ethnography and historical information, scholarship on documentaries can often appear in anthropology and history journals.
- Anthropology Plus This link opens in a new window
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Indexes journal articles, reports, commentaries, etc. in the fields of social, cultural, physical, biological, and linguistic anthropology, ethnology, archaeology, folklore, material culture, and interdisciplinary studies. - AnthroSource This link opens in a new window
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Includes backfiles and current issues of multiple anthropology journals. - America: History & Life This link opens in a new window
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A bibliographic database covering the world's scholarly literature in history. It includes article abstracts and bibliographical citations of the United States and Canada. - Historical Abstracts This link opens in a new window
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Index and abstracts for articles on the history of the world from 1450 to the present (excluding the United States and Canada, which are covered in America: History and Life) published since 1955.
Fine Arts Databases
Although more focused on the visual arts, these databases can be very helpful for identifying scholarship on video art and experimental film, animation, aesthetics, and other relevant topics.
- Art & Architecture Source This link opens in a new window
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Full-text coverage of more than 600 journals and 220 books on "a broad range of related subjects, from fine, decorative and commercial art, to various areas of architecture and architectural design." It wholly incorporates and significantly expands on the coverage and contents of the Art Full Text and Art Index Retrospective databases. Indexes illustrations. Coverage: late 1920s-present. - ARTbibliographies Modern This link opens in a new window
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Abstracts of journal articles, books, essays, exhibition catalogs, PhD dissertations, and exhibition reviews on all forms of modern and contemporary art from the late 19th century onwards. Coverage includes performance art and installation works, photography, video art, computer and electronic art, body art, graffiti, artists' books, theatre arts, conservation, crafts, ceramic and glass art, ethnic arts, graphic and museum design, fashion, and calligraphy, as well as traditional media.