A guide to using the digital resources (databases, online journals, and e-books) available at Waseda.
Today, a large amount of academic information is distributed digitally. Digital resources are definitely important for the progress of your study and research.
Databases arrange and store data in formats that permit efficient searches. There are many types of databases — including numerical information, such as statistics, and bibliographies and holding information on books and periodicals, and databases that allow the user to search and use academic papers and articles from journals and newspapers, encyclopedias, dictionaries, and case law digests. Some databases come on CD-ROMs or DVD-ROMs, although today online databases available over the Internet are widely used.
Online journals are digital versions of articles from journals that allow you to read the full text on the Internet. Online journals are also called e-journals. The advantages of online journals are as follows:
* Academic papers can be accessed on the Web before publication of the printed edition.
* It is easier to find individual academic papers in online editions than in printed editions. It is often possible to search for academic papers based on words in the full text.
* With some online journals, it is possible to access the full texts of cited academic papers directly from the bibliography.
* An increasing number of academic paper discovery tools (periodical index databases), such as CiNii Research, Web of Science and Scopus, provide links to the full texts of academic papers. In other words, you can often search for, discover, and read complete academic papers seamlessly.
* Online journals are accessible anytime from campus terminals and laboratory terminals. You can access most of online journals from off-campus locations via Off-Campus Access, a tool provided by the library.
E-books are digital versions of books that allow you to read the full text on the Internet.
Waseda E-Resource Portal, a service provided by the library, lists databases, online journals (by collection), and e-books (by collection) that Waseda subscribes to as well as useful Web sites selected by our librarians. Selecting digital resources matching your topic of interest is a key to finding information through digital resources. You can narrow down the list of databases by subject or material type with “Advanced Search” in Find Databases column in Waseda E-Resource Portal.
You can also search WINE by database titles.
Use of subscription digital resources is limited to Waseda faculty, staff and students. Some digital resources have further user restrictions, such as Tokorozawa Campus only, due to contractual obligations. And because some digital resources place limits on the number of simultaneous accesses, always make sure to click the Logout or Exit button when you have finished.
Please follow the specific rules for each of the subscription digital resources subscribed by the library. See Proper use of E-Resources.
If you have specified the online journals you want to read, please access WINE and use the "JOURNAL SEARCH" function from the Links Menu to search by journal titles or International Standard Serial Number (ISSN).
In recent years, the number of open access journals has increased. If you search a search engine such as Google by typing an article title in double quotation marks (" "), it might be possible to find open access articles.
A large number of e-books which Waseda University subscribes to are available from WINE. You can search e-books by title, keyword or International Standard BookNumber (ISBN). If you want to browse e-books only, you can limit your search results by checking the "Available online" box on the left side.
