Finding eBooks and Articles

Do you struggle to find eBooks and articles for your classes or research?

This guide is here to help! Follow these steps to easily locate the materials you need.

As a quick reminder, Latourette Library partners with the Digital Theological Library, significantly expanding the resources available to our patrons. Additionally, Latourette Library serves two institutions: William Carey International University and Providence Christian College. Keep in mind that institutional access to materials may vary.

Briefly put, WCIU patrons have access to Latourette Library and DTL 2 while PCC patrons have access to Latourette Library and DTL Open Access.

A Quick Overview:

  • eBooks can be located in Latourette Library by accessing EBSCO or by searching through the catalog and limiting your search to “eBooks.”

  • Articles can only be located by searching trough DTL’s resources.

eBooks

As mentioned, eBooks can be located both in Latourette Library as well as DTL. In this section we will take a look at searching for eBooks in Latourette Library (EBSCO and the catalog) and DTL’s catalogs.

Latourette Library

There are 2 ways to access eBooks through Latourette Library:

  1. By searching through EBSCO directly. This is the preferred method as it is an easy and straightforward approach.

  2. By searching through Latourette Library’s catalog. While this method works perfectly fine, it is not the preferred way of locating eBooks in Latourette Library as it required additional steps making the process longer and more tedious.

Searching through EBSCO is straightforward and simple. All you need to do is:

  1. Access EBSCO. This can be easily done by clicking on the EBSCO quick link on the Latourette Library home page.

  2. Logging in with your Latourette Library credentials. This is typically your “first name”.”last name” and a password that you previously chose. If you do not know your credentials or you forgot your password, please contact the library for assistance.

  3. After logging in, simply search by title, author, or keyword in order to locate relevant eBooks indexed in EBSCO!

  4. For more information on how to read and download EBSCO eBooks, take a look at our Using EBSCO eBooks Library Guide.

Finding eBooks via EBSCO

Searching though the catalog for eBooks works in a very similar way as EBSCO with additional steps added to the process. What you need to do:

  1. Access the catalog. This can easily be done by clicking the on Search the Catalog quick link.

  2. Once in the catalog, search title, author, or keyword and hit “Search”.

  3. Limit your search results by “eBook”.

  4. After locating an eBook you are interested in, click on “View eBook” in order to be redirected to the book in EBSCO.

Finding eBooks via the Latourette Library Catalog

Digital Theological Library

When it comes to searching for eBooks via DTL there is 1 major distinction when comparing it to Latourette Library. It is actually easier to search for eBooks via DTL’s catalogs!

Why is it easier to search through the catalog in DTL?

DTL provides access to over 160 databases, most of which index eBooks. The DTL catalog searches the majority of these databases simultaneously, making it easier to find the resources you need in one place.

Finding eBooks via DTL 2/DTL Open Access

Searching for eBooks in DTL 2 or DTL Open Access catalogs works in the exact same way as it does when searching through the Latourette Library Catalog. This is because Latourette Library and DTL uses the same catalog system called, WorldCat Discovery. In order to search the catalogs for eBooks simply:

  1. Access DTL 2 or DTL Open Access

  2. Click on the “Books” quick link in order to be taken to the catalog already limited to Books OR

  3. Search by title, author, or keyword in the search bar provided on the home page

  4. Limit your search to books to ensure that you are filtering out all other material types such as articles.

  5. Once a title of interest is located, click on “View eBook”

  6. If necessary choose a database that you would like to view the book in.

  7. Log in to DTL to access the title!

Articles

Articles can only be located via DTL 2 and DTL Open Access. Patrons will be unsuccessful at locating articles in Latouratte Library due to the lack of database subscriptions that index them.

There are two ways of locating articles via DTL:

  1. Searching through the catalog: The advantage to this is that DTL’s catalogs will search through multiple databases simultaneously. This means that the catalog is good for introductory broad research.

  2. Searching through a database: The advantage to searching through a database over a catalog is that a database has a stronger searching capability allowing for specialized searching techniques. This will ensure that your result list is highly focused on your topic.

For information on the differences between a catalog search and a database search, take a look at our Guide to Searching Library Guide!

Searching through the catalog for articles works in the exact same way as it does for searching for eBooks:

  1. Access DTL 2 or DTL Open Access

  2. Click on the “Articles” quick link in order to be taken to the catalog already limited to Articles OR

  3. Search by journal/article title, author, or keyword in the search bar provided on the home page

  4. Limit your search to articles to ensure that you are filtering out all other material types such as books.

  5. Once a title of interest is located, click on “View full text”

  6. If necessary choose a database that you would like to view the article in.

  7. Log in to DTL to access the item!

Finding Articles via DTL 2/DTL Open Access

Searching through databases for articles can be done by searching the databases located in DTL 2 or DTL Open Access database pages. Both platforms have over 100 databases to choose from. While there are significantly more databases then what is displayed, the below databases are great places to start your research.

DTL 2

ProQuest One Academic

ProQuest One Academic combines all four of ProQuest’s multidisciplinary products on the ProQuest platform. This includes ProQuest Central, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global, Academic Complete, and Academic Video Online).

JSTOR

JSTOR Archival Journals and Primary Sources Collection is a multi-disciplinary and discipline-specific collection that includes complete runs of over 4500 peer-reviewed journals.

SAGE

This Database provides access to Sage’s collection of journals. Please note that the DTL does not have access to all of them.

DTL Open Access

Academic Journals

This database is a broad-based publisher of peer-reviewed open access journals. Academic Journals publishes open access journals covering art and humanities, engineering, social sciences, biological sciences, physical sciences and agricultural sciences.

Directory of Open Access Journals

DOAJ is an online directory that indexes and provides access to thousands of high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals.

Open Library of Humanities

The OLH publishing platform supports academic journals from across the humanities disciplines, as well as hosting its own multidisciplinary journals.

Searching through databases will look a little different based on the database you are searching. Not all databases look and function in the same way. While they will all look a little different all will have similar functions and elements. All/most database will include:

  • A searchable search bar

  • An advance search function

  • Filters

  • Abstracts/summaries of the article

  • Citation information

  • Subject Headings

  • And while many will have the full text of the article, not all of them will.

All of these functions and elements are utilized together to aid in locating relevant articles.

For in-depth explanation how to search databases for articles and academic research, read our Guide to Searching Library Guide!