Research Databases

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Research databases
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List of Research Databases

Research databases are specialized platforms that offer access to a wide range of scholarly articles, journals, conference papers, and other academic resources across various fields. Here’s a list of prominent research databases, each with a brief description. Note: All the databases are “open access,” meaning anyone can access them without paying a fee.

Business Data and Information

Thomas Register Of American Manufacturers—The Thomas Register of American Manufacturers is a database of 500,000 suppliers and information on over six million industry products. 

Education Research

  • CORE—CORE is an open-access database aggregating nearly 300 million research papers into a single database to support the research community. It pulls information from tens of thousands of journals and repositories worldwide. 
  • Google Scholar—Google Scholar provides an easy way to search scholarly articles, books, court opinions, online repositories, and websites from one central location. It provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature and find relevant work across the world of academic research.
  • ScienceOpen – ScienceOpen is a professional networking platform designed to help scholars promote and get credit for their research. The platform has over 92 million articles from more than 32 million authors.
  • Scopus is an extensive abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature, including scientific journals, books, and conference proceedings. It covers various subjects, from science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities.
  • Web of Science is a comprehensive research platform providing access to multiple databases referencing cross-disciplinary research. It allows for in-depth exploration of scientific articles and covers the natural sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities.

Electronics, Electrical Engineering, and Computer Science

IEEE Xplore is a digital library that provides full-text access to the world’s highest-quality technical literature in electrical engineering, computer science, and electronics. It includes journals, conferences, and standards from IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) and IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology).

Government Research Databases

  • Access to Archival Databases (AAD) – AAD is a search engine that allows users to search some of the National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) holdings of electronic records. Examples of categories include Military Personnel, Prisoners of War, Businesses, Wars, Places, and many more. You can search by person, geographic area, organization, or date.
  • BeenVerified – BeenVerified provides access to billions of public records at an affordable price.
  • Catalog of U.S. Government Publications—This searchable online catalog allows you to find federal publications across multiple government databases and a nearby Federal Depository Library.
  • CIA World Factbook – The Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook provides detailed information on 267 world entities. Categories of information include the military, geography, government, economy, and more.
  • Microfilm Catalog—This is a searchable database of NARA’s numbered microfilm publications, including those created by or purchased by NARA for researcher use. Use it to determine which rolls of microfilm may be the most relevant to your research at NARA.
  • National Security Archive – independent non-governmental research institute and library. The National Security Archive collects and publishes declassified documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). This is somewhat of a WikiLeaks-style site, but all the information has been declassified.
  • Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) Resources—This is a collection of resources to help private investigators search open-source databases and the deep web (also known as Darknets). It also includes links to help with social media and other online investigations.
  • Public Records Databases – An eInvestigator.com article detailing the best open-access public records databases, such as BeenVerified.

Healthcare and Biomedical

PubMed is a free search engine that primarily accesses the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. It’s maintained by the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine. PubMed benefits researchers, healthcare professionals, and students in the biomedical field.

Other Research Databases

  • Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) Resources—This is a collection of resources to help private investigators search open-source databases and the deep web (also known as Darknets). It also includes links to help with social media and other online investigations.
  • Pay Phone Database—Payphones are a thing of the past, but some still exist. This website serves as a database of thousands of payphone numbers throughout the United States and Canada. It is an exciting resource for finding the source of obscure numbers. Maybe one of your clients is getting a call from a hard-to-track number. It could be an old payphone.
  • Watchman Index of Cults and Religions – This website indexes cults, occult organizations, new age groups, and religious movements. It provides information about more than 1200 religious organizations and beliefs.

We Need Your Help

Each of these databases serves a specific or broad range of disciplines, offering extensive academic and professional research resources. Please help us update this list with additional open-access research databases by posting suggestions in the comments section below.

Questions and Comments

Please post a message below if you have any questions or comments about these open-access research databases. While you’re here, check out our Private Investigator Research Tools and collection of resources designed specifically to help private investigators conduct research.

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