Arctic Sea Ice and International Policy: Articles and Other Resources

Scholarly bibliographic databases collect and organize references to published literature within a particular discipline or in a particular format. For Arctic studies, using a combination of interdisciplinary databases is recommended. Bibliographic databases are generally the best tool for finding scholarly articles but also include references to non-scholarly articles, books, book chapters, newspaper articles, and other publications. Links often provide direct access to full text; if not, look up the journal or book title in UW Libraries Search for access.

A repository is a place where collections, physical or digital, are stored for later access and use. Many organizations place documents they produce in their own institutional repository, while others might collect repositories of open-access documents from multiple sources. This can be extremely helpful for tracking down gray literature--documents which have not been commercially published, such as committee reports, pre-prints, working papers, conference proceedings, newsletters, theses/dissertations, etc.

Digital repositories and databases have similar search interfaces but different functions. A scholarly database's chief function is like an index: to identify relevant literature across a variety of sources, providing citations and sometimes links to full text. A repository's function is like an archive: to provide access to the documents contained within it.