This page contains a partial list of representative major databases and search engines useful in an academic setting for finding and accessing articles in academic journals, or in repositories, archives, or other collections of scientific and other articles. As the distinction between a database and a search engine is unclear for these complex document retrieval systems, see:

• the general list of search engines for all-purpose search engines that can be used for academic purposes
• bibliographic databases for information about databases giving bibliographic information about finding books and journal articles.

Note that "free" or "subscription" can refer both to the availability of the database or of the journal articles included. This has been indicated as precisely as possible in the lists below.

General

• BASE http://www.base-search.net/ (free index to academic content, mainly free)
• Cambridge Scientific Abstracts http://www.csa.com/ (subscription-based database aggregator)
• EBSCO (subscription index to subscription articles in a variety of fields)
• Google Scholar (free index to mostly subscription articles)
• GoPubMed http://www.GoPubMed.org (It is a knowledge-based search engine for biomedical texts with social networking)
• Live Search Academic (Closed by Microsoft as of May 23, 2008, results integrated into regular Search)
• Ovid Technologies (subscription-based collections and indexes)
• ProQuest (subscription index to subscription articles)
• Sens Public http://www.sens-public.org/ (databases, journals, other web content in social sciences, art and philosophy (several languages))
• Scirus (free index to academic web content)
• Scopus (subscription-based index to journal articles, web content, patents, etc.)
• Thomson Scientific WebPlus http://isiwebofknowledge.com/currentuser_wokhome/cu_productspecs/tswebplus/
• Web of Science (subscription-based database aggregator)
• PubFocus performs statistical analysis of the MEDLINE/PubMed search queries enriched with the additional information gathered from journal rank database and forward referencing database.

Publisher or platform-specific

(including groups of specific publishers)

• AJOL http://www.ajol.info (free database of abstracts from peer-reviewed African-published scholarly journals and progressively charged access to full text)
• Atypon Link http://www.atypon-link.com (Platform for various publishers: subscription-based collection)
• Blackwell Synergy http://www.blackwell-synergy.com (subscription-based collection)
• HighWire (Platform for various publishers: subscription-based and free collection)
• IngentaConnect http://www.ingentaconnect.com/ (Platform for various publishers: subscription-based collection)
• JSTOR (Backfiles of many major journals; subscription-based collection)
• MetaPress http://www.metapress.com (Platform for various publishers: subscription-based and free collection)
• Scitopia (Free federated vertical search from society Publishers: subscription-based and free collection)
• SpringerLink http://www.springerlink.com (subscription-based and free collection)
• ScienceDirect (index to subscription articles, mainly from Elsevier; subscription based)
• Scitation (American Insitute of Physics)

Non-English language

• Chinese databases:
  • Airiti Inc http://www.airiti.com (Platform for various publishers: subscription-based collection)
  • CEPS (Chinese Electronic Periodical Services) CEPS in Chinese CEPS in English- Covers Chinese Publishers and journals
  • TEPS (Taiwan Electronic Periodical Services) TEPS in Chinese TEPS in English - Covers Taiwan Publishers and journals
• Japanese databases:
  • CiNii (Japanese National Scholarly and Academic Information Navigator) CiNii in Japanese CiNii in English
  • J-Stage (Japan Science and Technology Information Aggregator, Electronic) Jstage in Japanese Jstage in English
  • NDL (Japanese National Diet Library Collection) NDL in Japanese NDL in English - mainly covers the best-known Japanese publishers and journals
  • Zasshi Kiji Sakuin (Japanese Periodicals Index)

Open access journals

• Directory of Open Access Journals (free collection and index)
• LivRe! http://livre.cnen.gov.br (free list of journals)
• Open J-Gate (free collection of articles)

Specific subjects

Agriculture

• CAB Direct http://www.cabdirect.org/ (platform hosting CAB Abstracts and Global Health, subscription-based databases for agriculture and environment), produced by CABI.

Technology

• ACM (Computer science and engineering) http://portal.acm.org/
• IEEE IEEE Xplore (electrical engineering, computer science, and electronics) http://ieeexplore.ieee.org
• IET Inspec (physics, electrical engineering, electronics, communications, control engineering, computers, computing, information technology, manufacturing, production and mechanical engineering) http://www.iee.org/publish/inspec/
• NSSN Search Engine for Standards - international standards search engine from the American National Standards Institutehttp://www.nssn.org
• U.S. DOE - Energy Citation Database http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/index.jsp

Natural sciences, mathematics and computer science

• ADS (Astrophysics Data System) (free index to astrophysics, geophysics and physics journals and conference proceedings)
• arXiv (free index to free articles, but it also indexes subscription journals and conferences)
• ChemXSeer (free index of chemistry documents that links to publishers)
• CiteSeerX (free index to free and subscription-based articles with a focus on computer and information science)
• Current Index to Statisticshttp://www.statindex.org
• Libra (Academic Search)http://libra.msra.cn (object level search engine, more reasonable ranking)
• MathSciNet (a nearly complete index of mathematical journals maintained by the American Mathematical Society)
• Science-advisor.net (free search engine and online forum, mainly physics, free alerts)
• SPIRES (free index to all the literature of particle physics - most articles are free via
• The Collection of Computer Science Bibliographies (free)
• ISI Web of Knowledge, scientific journal publications search engine (subscription required)
• Web of Science, scientific journal publications search engine (subscription required)

Social sciences

• ERIC (Educational Resource Information Center) (free index to subscription articles on education)
• LISA (Library and Information Science Abstracts)
• NBER (free index to subscription articles in economics)
• RePEc (free index to partly free articles in economics)
• SSRN (free index to mostly free articles in the social sciences)
• SSRRN (free index to mostly free datasets and statistical codes in the social sciences)

Medicine

• EMBASE (Biomedical and pharmacological database)
• HubMed (free alternative interface to PubMed)
• PubMed (free index to free and subscription articles