Encyclopedias A general encyclopedia covers the entire range of human knowledge in brief. A search for a basic concept recalls every mention of that concept in the encyclopedia, indicating different contexts for it and some of the fields of study that have explored it.

Subject encyclopedias cover the knowledge base of a single discipline in brief. A search here can familiarize you with some of the different contexts within which your topic has been discussed in a discipline.

Periodical indexes
Searching a simple term in a general periodical database like EBSCO retrieves articles from magazines and journals that include your topic. This will give you a chance to see what's being written on your topic in magazines like Time, Ms., or Scientific American, and journals like Communication Quarterly, Nature, or Harvard Law Review.

LiLI Databases
LiLI-D) http://www.lili.org/portal/ provide full-text articles from magazines, professional journals, newspapers, and reference books free to all Idaho residents.

Hot topic Web sites
UI Library Hot Topics