Research guides: INI332: Cities and Mega-Events: Databases and catalogues

Databases and catalogues

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Specialized databases for finding articles

GEOBASE
Lot's of urban studies articles show up in GEOBASE. This is an international journal index which also includes many Canadian and even local Toronto urban studies topics.

International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS) This link opens in a new window
IBSS is a broad based social sciences journal index that goes a long way back in time in its coverage. You will find urban studies articles in this database and some of them will deal with Canada.
US Newsstand This link opens in a new window
Includes the major international daily newspapers with full text of articles back to the early '80s.
EconLit This link opens in a new window
Major database for economics
PAIS Index This link opens in a new window
Major database for political science, international relations & public policy

SPORTDiscus
Covers research on all aspects of sport

Find more article databases for your topic

You can click on "Subjects A-Z" on the library homepage to find more subject specific databases. Try related areas like Geography, Urban Studies or Sports.

General search tools for finding books and articles

Search "All" button
The All button on the library's home page is a great place to start your search because it includes our library catalogue and many of our databases all in one shot. Results will display categorized into books, journal articles, etc.
Library catalogue
The library catalogue tells you what we hold here at the University of Toronto Libraries. You will find the catalogue under the red "Catalogue" tab on the libraries' home page.
Summon
Summon is a powerful search engine that searches across many journals in a multitude of disciplines. Articles included in Summon will include links to take you to those items which we hold here at U of T. You will find Summon under the "Articles" tab on the library home page.
Google Scholar
Use the "Settings" gear to get to Scholar Settings. Here you can limit to the University of Toronto. This will ensure that articles are accessible to you as students at U of T are identified.

E-Reference

World Encyclopedia
For background information on your city.
UN Demographic Yearbook
To determine city populations croll down to POPULATION Section 8 – click on the Excel or PDF link and you will get a list of populations of all capital cities and any city over 100,000 people. Note: the PDF to the left outlines how the population numbers are collected.

Scholarly sources

Scholarly sources are academic, research oriented and often published by university presses. They are intended for university-level study and research, and are often preferred when writing university-level essays.

What is the peer review process?

Peer-reviewed articles are reviewed by a group of peers (other experts in the field). Content is approved by the committee of peers before it is published.

Recognizing scholarly publications.

With experience you will learn to recognize peer reviewed and scholarly journals by the nature of the articles, authors and other characteristics. While you are learning you can also use tools such as Ulrich's Periodical Directory to verify if a journal is scholary or peer-reviewed.