What is full-text?

I've heard people say a database is full-text.  What does that mean?


Answer

Many of our databases include the complete articles (or full-text) from the journals they index. This means that most of the time you can find the article you are looking for in the database.  But - just because a database has the words "full-text" in it's name doesn't mean that all the articles are in full-text, some may still have to be borrowed through interlibrary loan.

Some publishers have an 'embargo' or a period of time which they don't allow the full-text of the article to appear in databases, this is usually the most recent issue / six months / year.  So, you may see a journal where some articles are available, but the most recent are not.

You can determine which journals include full-text by searching our Journal Finder

  • Last Updated Jul 13, 2017
  • Views 11
  • Answered By Leslie Inglis

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