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.
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)
AJOLhttp://www.ajol.info (free database of abstracts from peer-reviewed African-published scholarly journals and progressively charged access to full text)
IETInspec (physics, electrical engineering, electronics, communications, control engineering, computers, computing, information technology, manufacturing, production and mechanical engineering) http://www.iee.org/publish/inspec/