A selection of databases in all subject areas that are freely available on the Internet, including article indexes and abstracts, and occasional full text.
"This service, based on the Google Custom Search engine, lets you search the contents of the repositories listed in OpenDOAR for freely available academic research information. This quality assured approach minimises (but does not eliminate!) spurious or junk results, and leads more directly to useful and relevant information. Full texts are available for most results."
Open Access Databases
These databases offer full or partial open access to content.
Database of records describing publications and research projects about northern Canada. This project of the Arctic Institute of North America at the University of Calgary also maintains subset databases about specific regions, subjects and projects.
- provides "free access to a searchable database of journal articles from over 600 scholarly journals published in Finland from 1990 onwards" - includes areas of the sciences, social sciences and humanities
- includes a list of Reference texts e.g. Familiar Quotations, Roget's International Thesaurus, Bible (King James version), Anatomy of the Human Body (Gray's), Robert's Rules of Order, etc.
Comprehensive bibliography of scholarly writing about the history of western art. Includes the International Bibliography of Art (IBA), covering the years 2008 and part of 2009. Journals Included in BHA (PDF, 308 K)
Open access to peer reviewed bioscience journals published in developing countries. These journals contain timely research on public health, international development, tropical medicine, food and nutritional security and biodiversity.
Includes entries on articles dating from the late-19th century to the present day. Canadian music journals, newsletters and magazines are represented here, many of which are currently active
Canadian Legal Information Institute: provides the full-text of legislation and court decisions for Canada and for each of the provinces, including Supreme Court of Canada decisions back to 1876.
Information on the properties and activities of drugs and drug-like small molecules and their targets. The database is part of the ChEMBL resources at the EMBL-EBI.
Full text filings for all North American public companies and mutual funds. Coverage is for the previous 4 years. Industry information is covered in the 10-k forms of individual companies.
From the Information Institute of Syracuse, this resource includes links to lesson plans, online education information, and question archive responses.
A service of AMEDEO, created to serve the needs of healthcare professionals, including physicians, nurses, pharmacists, administrators, other members of the health professions, and patients and their friends. They can easily access timely, relevant information within their respective fields.
FreeBMD is an ongoing project, the aim of which is to transcribe the Civil Registration index of births, marriages and deaths for England and Wales, and to provide free Internet access to the transcribed records.
Searches link to VIU resources where applicable. Search across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations.
- from 1995 to current - provides over 58,000 DOE research & development reports in full text in the sciences (physics, chemistry, materials biology, environmental sciences, energy technologies, engineering, computer & information science, and renewable energy)
"...digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, the print disabled, and the general public."
- academic and scientific biomedical journals published in India, including peer reviewed journals - provides lists for hospitals, physicians, prescription information, clinical trials, etc.
Medical information on over 740 topics, including systems of the body, compiled by the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Includes diagrams and videos.
High Definition footage and archival treasures from the National Film Board of Canada and partners. "NFB IMAGES features images from around the world: classic and contemporary material on war and conflict, industrialization, rural and urban lifestyles, celebrities, wildlife and a treasure trove of film footage on the Arctic."
Statistics, publications and documents of the OECD related to sustainable economic growth, employment, living standards, financial stability, economic development, and world trade
- "a nonprofit organization of scientists and physicians committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature a freely available public resource"
Gale Artemis: Primary Sources
... wide array of primary source material from the 17th, 18th & 19th centuries, including Indigenous Peoples: North America.
Chatham House Online Archive
... publications and archives of the Royal Institute of International Affairs is a multi-disciplinary resource bringing a 20th and 21st century world perspective to researchers and students.
Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive
... historical archive that embraces the scholarly study of slavery in a comprehensive, conceptual, and global way.
State Papers Online, 1509-1714
... gathers together 16th- and 17th- century British State Papers and links these rare historical manuscripts to their fully text-searchable calendars.
Gale NewsVault
... delivers single-point access to Gale’s ever-growing collection of historical newspapers and periodicals — currently more than 12 million digitized facsimile pages from newspapers and periodicals around the world.
British Literary Manuscripts Online
... hundreds of thousands of pages of rare manuscripts, poems, plays, essays, novels, diaries, journals, correspondence, and other manuscripts from the year 1100 through the Victorian era.
Declassified Documents Reference System
... provides direct information on the critical policies and events of post World War II era, including reports from Cabinet meeting minutes, National Security Council policy statements, CIA intelligence studies, presidential conferences, State Department political analyses, and Joint Chiefs' papers.
PubMed includes links to full-text articles which may be found in other databases such as PubMed Central or at publisher web sites. Includes citations for biomedical articles from MEDLINE and life science journals back to 1948.
- scholarly literature in sciences, social sciences, arts & humanities published in open access journals from Latin American, Portugal, Spain and South Africa
- "comprehensive scientific research tool on the web. With over 410 million scientific items indexed at last count, it allows researchers to search for not only journal content but also scientists' homepages, courseware, pre-print server material, patents and institutional repository and website information"
Search all theses in Library and Archives Canada's theses collection, which was established in 1965; and access and search the full text electronic versions of numerous Canadian theses and dissertations.
- direct online access to federal government documents e.g. Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, Abraham Lincoln papers, USA Constitution, etc.
The VIU community acknowledges and thanks the Snuneymuxw, Quw’utsun and Tla’Amin, on whose traditional lands we teach, learn, research, live and share knowledge.
