Research Guides

CUNY BA

CUNY E-Resources

CUNY Libraries license this core set of databases and A-Z journals for all current students, faculty, and staff, see instructions for access.

CUNY campus library websites require a unique campus login! Through your home campus library, you will have remote access to all of their databases, Ebooks, journals, etc.

Off-Campus Access

Access to the core collection of CUNY library databases and journals is via CUNYFirst Login. There is a helpful FAQ where you can learn more about CUNYFirst Login and find out how to get help.

Current students, faculty, and staff use a 13- or 14-digit library barcode to borrow books. Contact your home campus library if you have trouble with a barcode.

CUNY Core A - Z Databases

  • Academic OneFile:  Access to thousands of articles in scholarly journals and reference sources in the physical sciences, technology, medicine, social sciences, the arts, theology, and literature.
  • Academic Search Complete:  Access to articles from magazines and peer-reviewed journals, as well as books, conference papers and proceedings, and educational reports from almost all academic areas of study.
  • Biography & Genealogy Master Index:  Indexes current, easily accessible references sources, as well as important retrospective works that cover individuals, both living and deceased, from every field of activity and from all areas of the world.
  • Biography Index Retrospective: 1946 – 1983:  This collection includes indexing of interviews and profiles of history makers, as well as obituaries, collections of letters, diaries, memoirs, juvenilia, book reviews, bibliographies, and exhibition reviews.
  • Biography Reference Bank:  Offers the in-depth, original profiles from the Current Biography and World Authors series, the thorough periodical coverage of Biography Index and the specialist biographical content of Junior Authors & Illustrators.
  • Biography Reference Center:  Original biographical profiles plus feature articles, interviews, essays, book reviews, performance reviews, speeches, obituaries, and images.
  • Book Review Digest Plus:  Provides excerpts or the full text of book reviews of current English-language fiction and non-fiction works from 1983 to the present.
  • Book Review Index Online:  A comprehensive online guide to book reviews that includes more than five million review citations from thousands of publications, with linking to more than 630,000 full-text reviews.
  • Britannica Academic:  Combines the Encyclopaedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus, magazines and periodicals, and many other research tools.
  • Burney Collection Newspapers:  A comprehensive collection of early English newspapers from London, the British Isles, and colonies, including many American titles.
  • Chronicle of Philanthropy:  An independent news organization that has been serving leaders, fundraisers, grant makers, and others involved in the philanthropic enterprise for more than 25 years. It offers an advice section to help nonprofit workers and has one of the biggest listings of career opportunities.
  • CUNY GC Legacy (Retrospective) Dissertations, 1965 – 2014:  This GC Library-constructed resource includes CUNY dissertations through 2014. The collection requires authentication with a CUNY library barcode number.
  • DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals (open to public):  Contains free, full-text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals that aims to cover all subjects and languages. There are over 1000 journals in the directory.
  • The Economist: :  The full text of The Economist from 1843 to 2006. Essential reading for anyone engaged in politics, current affairs, business and trade worldwide.
  • Essay and General Literature:  Index to 65,000 essays in 5,300 anthologies and collections. Coverage spans a range of the humanities and social sciences.
  • Essay and General Literature Retrospective:  Contains citations for over 270,000 essays in collections dating back to 1900. Coverage spans the entire range of the humanities and social sciences, including literary works, art history, drama, and film and publications from the U.S., Canada, and Great Britain.
  • Ethnic Newswatch:  Provides access to more than 200 newspapers, magazines and journals from the ethnic, minority and native press. Includes materials in Spanish. To find movie reviews limit the document type to movie review.
  • Foreign Policy:  Brings together insight and analysis for leaders from government, business, finance, and the academic world to better understand and address the most urgent and important issues of our time.
  • Gale Biography in Context: :  More than 650,000 biographical entries covering international figures from all time periods and areas of study, including videos, audio selections, images, primary sources, and magazine and journal articles from hundreds of major periodicals and newspapers.
  • Gale Virtual Reference Library (GVRL):  Hundreds of specialized encyclopedias, dictionaries, biographical directories and other reference books in the subject fields of criminal justice, economics, history, literature, psychology, religion, science, world cultures, and more.
  • General OneFile:  Access to articles in general periodicals, newspapers, reference books, as well as multimedia sources. Subjects include humanities, education, environmental issues, technology, health care, and politics.
  • Global Issues in Context:  Provides international viewpoints on a broad spectrum of global issues, topics, and current events. Brings together news, global viewpoints, reference, country information, primary source documents, videos, statistics and more in a single search.
  • Historical New York Times:  Full text of articles and page images of The New York Times from 1851 to 2010.
  • JSTOR (Arts & Sciences I – XII):  A searchable collection of the complete runs (minus the most recent 2 to 5 years) of hundreds of the most significant scholarly journals.
  • Lexis-Nexis Academic (New Name: NexisUni):  Federal and state laws and cases, constitutions, municipal codes, law review articles, as well as articles from U.S. and foreign newspapers, magazines, trade publications and journals.
  • MasterFILE Complete:  Articles from many popular sources covering nearly all subjects including general reference, business, health, and more.
  • National Geographic Archive: 1888 2015:  The complete archive from 1888 to 1994 of the award-winning magazine, which features in-depth coverage of cultures, nature, science, technology, and the environment; and spectacular photographic essays.
  • New York Times Digital Subscription:  All members of the CUNY community with a valid CUNY email address may sign up for complimentary access to The New York Times digital edition through NYTimes.com and NYTimes smartphone apps.
  • Newsstand (formerly Custom Newspapers):  Contains the full text of thousands of American and international newspapers.
  • Open Library of the Internet Archive:  Access to more than 3,000,000 books for download or borrowing via controlled digital lending.
  • Oxford English Dictionary:  The complete text of the OED’s twenty-volume Second Edition and three-volume Additions Series. The worldwide standard source for English word definitions, word pronunciation, word history and usage.
  • Oxford Reference Online: :  Over 200 reference books from Oxford University Press, including language dictionaries, and reference works in art, science, classics, business, history, law, literature, medicine, geography, performing arts, philosophy, and social science.
  • Project Muse:  An interdisciplinary collection of high quality, peer-reviewed journals.
  • Readers Guide Mega Edition: Provides access to general-interest periodicals published in the U.S. from 1983 to the present as well as comprehensive indexing to periodicals published from 1890 to 1982.
  • Readers Guide Retrospective: 1890 – 1982:  Offers full coverage of the original paper volumes from 1890 to 1982.
  • World Scholar: Latin America and the Caribbean:  Brings together primary source documents relating to Latin America and the Caribbean; academic journals and news-feeds; reference materials; maps; statistics; audio and video. Covers politics, economics, religion, culture, international affairs, the environment, science and technology.
  • Business Collection (Gale):  Provides full-text coverage of all business disciplines including accounting, economics, finance, marketing, management and strategy, as well as business theory and practice.
  • Business Insights: Global:  Detailed company and industry profiles including SWOT reports, market share reports, and financial reports; thousands of company histories and industry essays from Gale’s core business collection; case studies, scholarly journals, and business news for deep research coverage of global economies.
  • Business Source Complete: Full text of peer-reviewed journals and magazines, country and industry reports, and case studies covering management, economics, finance, accounting in both national and international business.
  • CIAO:  Columbia International Affairs Online includes working papers from university research institutes and NGOs, foundation-funded research projects, and conference proceedings.
  • Congress and the Nation:  The authoritative reference on congressional law-making and trends. CUNY has access to I through XIII (from the 80th Congress to the 112th Congress).
  • Contemporary Womens Issues :  Multidisciplinary, full-text database that brings together relevant content from mainstream periodicals, “gray” literature, and the alternative press — with a focus on the critical issues and events that influence women’s lives in more than 190 countries.
  • CQ Researcher:  Explores a single hot issue in the news in depth each week.
  • EconLit:  Access to articles in international economic journals, essays, research papers, books, dissertations, book reviews, and working papers.
  • Gartner:  Research and analysis on the global information technology industry; includes research papers on best practices and emerging industries and technologies.
  • Global Issues in Context:  Focuses on issues beyond the United States, with news articles, videos, statistics, reference materials & some academic articles. Includes foreign, English language newspaper articles written for readers in other countries. User friendly; focus is on broad topics.
  • Gun Regulation and Legislation in America:  Periodicals, key compiled federal legislative histories, relevant congressional hearings, CRS Reports, Supreme Court briefs, and more, dealing with gun control and regulation.
  • ICPSR (Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research):  ICPSR provides access to an archive of social science data. Datasets are available for statistical manipulation: The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research provides access to an archive of social science data. Datasets are available for statistical manipulation.
  • Law Library Microfilm Collection Digital:  An archival collection of legal materials with historical federal legislative, executive and judicial papers, selected state documents, and historically significant international documents.
  • Legal Source:  Articles on current issues, studies, thoughts and trends of the legal world.
  • LegalTrac:  Provides indexing for more than 1,200 major law reviews, legal newspapers, specialty publications, Bar Association journals, and international legal journals, including more than 200 titles in full text.
  • LGBT Life with Full Text:  Articles from hundreds of the most important and historically significant LGBT journals, magazines and regional newspapers, monographs and books.
  • Making of the Modern World:  Tracks the development of the modern, western world through the lens of trade and wealth. Includes books, serials, pamphlets, essays and more sourced from leading collections at major libraries around the world.
  • Military & Government Collection:  Articles from journals and current news pertaining to all branches of the military and government.
  • Military and Intelligence Database:  Provides access to scholarly journals, magazines, and reports covering all aspects of the past and current state of military affairs. The database offers content in key subject areas including governmental policies, the socioeconomic effects of war, the structure of the armed forces, and more.
  • Opposing Viewpoints:  Access viewpoint articles and multimedia on hot topics and social issues.
  • PsycARTICLES:  Thousands of articles from journals published by the APA and allied organizations.
  • PsycINFO:  The most comprehensive index and access to materials in psychology articles and books. Coverage from 1887 to the present.
  • Regional Business News:  Covers regional business news in metro and rural areas within the United States.
  • Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law:  Brings together all essential legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world.
  • Social Sciences:  Provides accesses to journals in anthropology, criminology, economics, law, geography, policy studies, psychology, sociology, social work, and urban studies.
  • Social Science Index Retrospective: 1929 – 1983:  Index to historical materials in the social sciences.
  • SocIndex:  Contains core coverage journals dating back to 1895. Also includes full text for many books, monographs, and conference papers.
  • 17th and 18th Century Burney Collection (British newspapers):  A comprehensive collection of early English newspapers from London, the British Isles, and colonies, including many American titles.
  • 18th Century Collections Online (ECCO):  A digital archive of 150,000 books published in the eighteenth century, covering a broad spectrum of topics like law, history, science, and art.
  • 19th Century Collections Online (NCCO):  An eclectic collection of digital collections of primary source materials mostly from British and American libraries.
  • AAS Historical Periodicals Collection:  Contains more than 6,500 historical periodical titles dating from 1693 to 1877.
  • Art Abstracts:  Index to articles in leading periodicals in the Arts from 1984 to the present.
  • Black Thought and Culture:  Contains the non-fiction published works of leading African Americans, and includes interviews, journal articles, speeches, essays, pamphlets, letters and other ephemeral material.
  • Communication & Mass Media Complete:  A collection of journal articles, encyclopedias and handbooks in the fields of communications and mass media.
  • Gale Literary Sources:  Portal for cross-searching literary databases from Gale.
  • Gale U.S. History in Context:  Content includes reference works, millions of news and periodical articles, and more than 5,000 rare and vital primary source documents that range from slave journals to presidential papers.
  • Gale World History in Context:  Rare primary sources, reliable reference and multi-media content puts world history into context for students.
  • Humanities Source:  Articles in all aspects of the humanities including art, literature, music and philosophy, with access dating back to 1907.
  • Literature Resource Center:  Provides access to full text biographies, critical analyses, reviews, and bibliographies of work from writers in all major genres of literature.
  • Litfinder:  Provides access to literary works and authors throughout history and includes more than 150,000 full-text poems and 800,000+ poetry citations, as well as short stories, speeches, and plays. The database also includes secondary materials like biographies, images, and more.
  • MLA International Bibliography–Ebsco:  Index to scholarly journal articles on language and literature and critical analysis of films.
  • Oxford Art Online:  Access to the entire text of the Dictionary of Art from Grove, The Oxford Companion to Western Art, Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, and The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms.
  • Oxford Music Online:  Comprises The Oxford Dictionary of Music, Grove Music Online, and The Oxford Companion to Music.
  • Scribner Writers:  Bio-critical essays on the lives and works of more than 1,400 important authors from around the world.
  • Slavery and Anti-Slavery:  Includes collections on the transatlantic slave trade, the global movement for the abolition of slavery, the legal, personal, and economic aspects of the slavery system, and the dynamics of emancipation in the U.S. as well as in Latin America, the Caribbean, and other regions.
  • Women and Social Movements:  The collection currently includes documents from 120 projects and archives with respect to the history of women’s social movements from 1600 to 2000.
  • American Chemical Society:  Full-text of articles from a collection of the American Chemical Society.
  • Applied Science & Technology Source:  Offers extensive coverage of research and development within the applied sciences and computing disciplines.
  • CINAHL Complete:  The Cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health Literature with links to full text.
  • Gale Science in Context:  Provides contextual information on hundreds of today’s most significant science topics.
  • General Science:  Access to popular and professional science journals published in the U.S. and Great Britain.
  • GreenFILE:  Scholarly, government and general-interest information covering all aspects of human impact on the environment.
  • GreenR (Global Reference on the Environment/Energy/and Natural Resources:  Topics include global warming, food safety, access to health care, and the impact of economic development on international relations.
  • Health and Wellness Resource Center:  Reader-friendly collections of articles on common health issues, grouped by topic. Includes some academic articles.
  • Health Reference Center Academic:  Access to nursing and allied health journals, other medical journals, newsletters and consumer health magazines.
  • Health Source Nursing/Academic Edition:  Access to articles in scholarly journals focusing on many medical disciplines.
  • IEEE Xplore:  Provides access to scientific and technical content published by the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers).
  • IOPscience:  Access to the full collection of the Institute of Physics journals and archives and several ebook collections.
  • JAMA – Journal of the A.M.A.:  Fulltext of Journal of the American Medical Association.
  • MathSciNet:  Articles in mathematics from the American Mathematical Society.
  • Medline Complete:  Covers medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, pre-clinical sciences, and more.
  • Nature (from 1997-present):  Provides access to the full content of the premier science journal Nature, as well as 28 additional Nature Publishing journals.
  • New England Journal of Medicine:  Fulltext of the New England Journal of Medicine.
  • Nursing & Allied Health Collection:  A comprehensive collection of periodicals and reference content supporting health care professionals.
  • Public Library of Science (PLos) Biology (open to public):  Open source collection from the Public Library of Science.
  • Public Library of Science (PLoS) Medicine (open to public):  Open source collection from the Public Library of Science.
  • PubMed (open to public):  Searches citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books.
  • Science Magazine (from 1997-present):  Fulltext of Science from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
  • ScienceDirect:  Access to journals in the sciences and social sciences.
  • SpringerLink (from 1997-present):  The full collection of Springer journals.
  • Wiley Online Library (from 1997-present):  Full text of over 1400 journals from Wiley-Blackwell Publishers.
  • Infoshare:  Population statistics, immigration trends, and more for New York City and New York State.
  • NYCdata (open to public):  A compendium of data about New York City.
  • Social Explorer:  Displays interactive maps of U.S. Census data going back to 1790.
  • EBSCOhost Ebook Collection:  A small collection of Ebsco Ebooks.
  • Ebook Central (formerly Ebrary):  A constantly expanding collection of thousands of ebooks on a broad variety of disciplines.
  • SpringerLink:  Large multidisciplinary collections with strength in the sciences.
  • Grant Forward:  The Research Foundation has secured a one-year trial to this resource that provides grant information from over 9,000 funding sources. You must sign up for an account with your CUNY email.
  • RefWorks:  RefWorks is a web-based bibliography and database manager that allows you to create your own personal database by importing references from text files or online databases and other various sources. You can use these references in writing papers and automatically format the paper and the bibliography in seconds.
  • Pivot:  COS Pivot contains funding opportunities from many government and private sources, accessible via registration with a CUNY email address. It is the largest, most comprehensive database available through the Funding Information Portal, and access includes detailed documentation and user guides.
  • New York Public Library:  The New York Public Library is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items, the New York Public Library has 87 branches throughout the boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island.
  • Brooklyn Public Library:  The Brooklyn Public Library is the public library system of the borough of Brooklyn. The Library has 58 neighborhood branches and carries over 5 million items.
  • Queens Library:  The Queens Library, also known as the Queens Borough Public Library, is the public library for the borough of Queens. It has 62 locations, seven Adult Learning Centers, two Family Literacy Centers, and a Mobile Library, and a collection of 7.5 million items.
  • WorldCat:  WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of 72,000 libraries in 170 countries and territories that participate in the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) global cooperative.