Databases: Why Use Them?
Research projects often require you to look close up at a body of research produced by scholars in a particular field. This research is typically collected, codified, and made findable in a tool called a subject database.
Every academic discipline has at least one subject database that's considered the disciplinary gold standard -- a reliable, (relatively) comprehensive, and accurate record of the books that scholars are publishing, and the ideas they're debating and discussing in important and influential journals.
Databases are like lenses: they change what you see and how you see it -- and they offer you easy and efficient ways to bring your questions into sharper focus.
Film-Related Databases, if You're Feeling Adventurous
MLA International Bibliography Harvard Key
While it's predominantly a database of literary scholarship, MLA also has strong and substantial coverage of scholarship on film.
Screen Studies Harvard Key
A comprehensive survey of current publications related to film scholarship alongside detailed and expansive filmographies.
PROQUEST PERFORMING ARTS PERIODICALS Harvard Key
This database covers a broad spectrum of the arts and entertainment industry - including dance, drama, theater, stagecraft, musical theater, circus performance, opera, pantomime, puppetry, magic, performance art, film, television and more.
