Database Help: Muse

Database overview

• Humanities and social sciences (and one math journal)
• Dates of coverage: 1994 - present
• Indexing of articles
• Full text

Database description

Muse is a full-text database of over 160 scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences. New issues of included journals will continue to be placed online in advance of the print version. While the focus of Muse is to provide access to periodicals prior to their availability in print, the Johns Hopkins University Press will archive these titles. At present, the Special Collections only go back to 1994.

Accessing Muse

Muse is available from the Library Databases web page and computers in the reference area.

Using Muse

Comments below will help to get you started in the basic or advanced mode. More detailed database help is provided on the search page by clicking on the Help link that appears in the darkened box under the phrase Search Muse Database.

From the Library Databases web page, click on Muse. From the Muse home page, click on Search.

Basic search

The basic search screen appears which allows searching by search terms, author, or both search terms and author. Do not use Boolean operators (such as and, or, not) to connect ideas. Instead, select the radio buttons to specify searching by All of these words, Any of these words, or Exact phrase. Users can choose in which fields they would prefer their search terms to appear such as All Sections, Titles, LC Subjects among others.

Search for authors one at a time, with first and last name in either order (first name first, or last name first, the results should be the same).

Results can be sorted by date, title, journal, or document type (all in descending or ascending order), as well as by relevancy rank. Also optional is choosing the number of items displayed on a page at one time.

Advanced search

Advanced searches can be performed by clicking on the Advanced Search link on the basic search page (the link appears in the darkened box under the phrase Search Muse Database). Search boxes default to phrase searching. Enter search terms or phrases in separate boxes and select Boolean operators from the pull-down menus on the left. DO NOT use Boolean Operators inside the search boxes unless you want to actually search for the words "and" or "or". As in basic search, you can select the field to search using right-hand pull-down menus.

Search up to two authors of Muse articles in author box(es) with names in any word order.

Limits can be applied to narrow your search results by:

• document type (e.g., "All documents", "Articles", "Reviews" among others)
• publication, either all publications in the Muse database or select one or as many journals as desired
• collection of journals by discipline or university publisher
• subject area

Search results

Results from searches are displayed in the order selected with links that allow the user to view the entire document or to show where search terms occur in context within the article.

Special tips

• Ignore diacritical marks when searching.
• Do use hyphens when searching for words with hyphens.
• Truncate words with an asterisk (*) to truncate words at the end (i.e., modern* to search modern, modernity, modernism).
• When searching for a word that has varied spelling, search each of the different variations (i.e., women or woman)

  Basic screen: enter terms in the search box and select All of these words.

  Advanced screen: if searching with multiple terms, enter the terms in separate boxes and select the appropriate Boolean operator: or for variations of the same concept (dogs or canines), and and for separate concepts (dogs and nutritional requirements).

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Diane Downing
Head of Reference
Gee Library, Texas A&M University - Commerce
PO Box 3011, Commerce, TX 75429
phone: (903) 886-5719
email: diane_downing@tamu-commerce.edu

Last updated June 2002.