MATH 301: Introduction to the History of Mathematics

Below are some excellent databases to use to search for articles on your topic.  

America History & Life with Full Text - Covers the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Selective indexing of about 1700 journals from 1955 to the present. Offers full-text for about 200 journals.

Historical Abstracts with Full Text - Covers the history of the world (excluding the United States and Canada) from 1450 to the present, including world history, military history, women's history, and the history of education. Indexing and abstracts for about 1800 journals; full-text for about 350 journals. 

JSTOR - Full-text of over 1400 core scholarly journals and Books across most subject areas.  For the best results, use the Advanced Search.  Also helpful is entering your topic as a Title.

Advanced Search in the Library's Search Everything feature  allows you to search many databases simultaneously: 

What does peer-reviewed mean in context to journal articles? Peer-review is a process that many scholarly journals undertake to evaluate the quality of the material being submitted. When an article is submitted to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, several impartial reviewers (who are experts in the subject matter) assess for accuracy, and the validity of the research methodology and procedure. 

To definitively determine if an article is from a peer-reviewed journal, check the journal title in Ulrichsweb. Click on the title of the journal, and look for the referee icon as well as Academic/Scholarly for content type.

Locating the full text of the article in electronic form

Full text articles available directly in databases are indicated by HTML Full Text or PDF Full Text.  Full text articles available with the wording such as Linked Full Text are available in another database.  Clicking on the link will connect either to the full text article or the other database.

Requesting an article on interlibrary loan

If you find an article from a periodical that is not available at Milne Library, you can request the article using the library’s interlibrary loan service.  See a librarian for help. 

 Finding an article in a specific journal

• Use the Journals tab on the library home page. 
• Enter the title of the journal or magazine, for example, Critical Sociology, in the search box. 
• Look for the journal title in the results list.
• Online journals are available online through the link, Available Online.  If the journal is in print, its availability and location in the library will be indicated.  An example of a journal that is available both online and in print is below:

JOURNAL

Current history (New York, N.Y. : 1941)

1941-

                                     Available at Milne Library Periodicals Collection, Reading Room, 1st floor (D410

                              .C82) and other locations

                        Available Online 

• To obtain an online copy of an article, click on the Available Online link and go to the section, Full text availability, and click on an appropriate database.
• Link to the correct issue of the periodical (note the year, issue, volume number, and pages numbers of the article).

Print journals and newspapers in our Periodicals Collection are available for 1-day use in the library building.

Locating Journals:

To locate articles from particular journals, you need to first identify if the library has access to them or not. To do this, you first need to go to the library homepage. You will then click on the “Journals” tab. Enter the name of the publication you are seeking in the search box. You should see the title in your results list. Underneath the item’s name, there should be a list of results. These will either be links to databases, the organization’s website, an interlibrary loan request, or link to the catalog information.

The library has access to articles in different ways. Some journals are only available in print, while others have access online. After each link name, you will see a date range. This indicates what years the library has access to. Many publishers place a full text delay (or embargo) for online access.

There are some journals that the library does not have access to. You can request particular articles through interlibrary loan. Your log-in information for ILLiad is your Oneonta username and password. The first time you log in, you will be asked to fill out a form. Make sure you change the delivery location to Circulation Desk. It will default to NYSHA Library in Cooperstown. Requesting articles through ILLiad is free for you as a student. However, it is not instantaneous. The typical time frame is about 24 hours, but if you request over the weekend, it will take longer. Also, some articles are easier to acquire than others and can be processed faster.

Before you try ILLiad, you may also want to try Google Scholar. Click on the “Databases” tab on the library homepage, and then click on the letter G. Click on the Google Scholar link. If you access Google Scholar through the library’s website, you have access to more articles. Searching Google Scholar is most effective when you already have a specific article that you are looking for. You can find articles by browsing the table of contents in journals.

Find an Article:

Now that you have located the journal, you need to find an article. There are two ways to find articles, by browsing the table of contents or by searching within.

The searching within function only works if you are accessing the journal through a library database. Then you can enter keywords and limit your results by particular years.

Browsing by the table of contents is a way to find articles regardless of how you are accessing the publication.