What is FirstSearch?

Firstsearch is a collection of databases which indexes several thousand periodicals in many different subject areas. FirstSearch is a commercial service to which the UIC Library subscribes. FirstSearch allows you to find articles in popular magazines and scholarly journals in the Arts and Humanities, Social Sciences, Physical and Applied Sciences, and Business. FirstSearch also provides the full text of several thousand articles available for download or printing.

How do I access FirstSearch?

FirstSearch can be accessed several different ways from the Library's Homepage.

·         Click your mouse on the arrow in the "QUICK LINKS/Short cuts" box, click on "FirstSearch" and then click the "Go!" button.

·         Click on the "Resources" button, on the left hand side of the page, click on "Indexes and Databases" then click on the alphabetical list of electronic resources. Click "F" and then Click on the FirstSearch link.

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Which Database should I choose?

FirstSearch allows you to search 27 different databases, 19 of which contain full-text articles. Each of these databases indexes thousands of periodicals and books in different subject areas. You may search up to three databases at a time. Below is a list of databases FirstSearch offers and a brief statement about its contents. For more information about the coverage and scope of each database, go to FirstSearch, click the "Databases" heading on the left hand navigation menu, and then click "List All." Each database will have an information icon linking to a more detailed statement about the database.

ABI_INFORM	U.S. and international articles on business and management
Art Abstracts	Leadng Publications in the World of Arts
ArticleFirst	An OCLC index of articles from nearly 12,500 journals
ASTA	Applied Science and Technology Abstracts
ATLAReligion	Religious and Theological literature for students and faculty
BioAgIndex	Leading publications in agriculture, biology, forestry, and ecology
BooksInPrint	In-print, out-of-print, and forthcoming books, with optional reviews
CWI	Contemporary Women's Issues on health and human rights
ECO	Electronic Collections Online. Full text of scholarly journals
EconLit	Journals, books, and working papers on economics
GenSciAbs	General science literature from the U.S. and Europe
GPO	U.S. government publications
HealthInfo	Health and wellness information for consumers, students and professionals
HumanitiesAbs	Abstracts covering diverse subject areas of the humanities
LibraryLit	Materials on libraries and information science
MEDLINE	All areas of medicine, including dentistry and nursing
PapersFirst	An index of papers presented at conferences worldwide
PerAbs	Periodical Abstracts. General topics and radio/TV transcripts
Proceedings	An index of worldwide conference proceedings
RILM Abstracts of Music	RILM Abstracts of Music Literature
SocialSciAbs	Abstracts of articles on the social sciences
UnionLists	OCLC Union Lists of Periodicals
WilsonBusiness	Leading English-language business periodicals
WilsonSelectPlus	Full text articles in science, humanities, education and business
WorldAlmanac	The World Almanac
WorldCat	Books and other materials in libraries worldwide

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How do I search FirstSearch?

FirstSearch provides excellent context sensitive online documentation about its databases and how to search. Go to FirstSearch

If FirstSearch doesn't have the article I need in full text, how do I get it?

UIC does not own every periodical in every database, so when you have a citation to an article from FirstSearch, you must check UICCAT, the UIC Library's catalog, to see if we own that title. FirstSearch has a great feature which tells you whether UIC owns the periodical you are looking for. If the article has the "My library" icon next to it, then UIC subscribes to the journal and you only need to find out where the journal is shelved.

Make sure you have the name of the journal, volume number, year, and page numbers, as well as the author and title of the article. You will search for the title of the journal in UICCAT, not the title of the article.

For example:

Author:	Quart, Leonard
Title:	The uniqueness of ordinary lives: Mike Leigh's BBC films
Source:	Film Criticism v. 24 no2 (Winter 1999/2000) p. 41-54

You need to find out whether UIC subscribes to the journal Film Criticism and if UIC has the correct volume.

For more help on searching our catalog, see UICCAT Help

If UIC does not own a journal you need, consult the pages on requesting articles from other libraries. A similar page exists for requesting books from other libraries.

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This page maintained by Steve Brantley 09/03