Selecting a Database Script

Selecting a Database (Handout)

In this tutorial, you’ll learn:  what a database is, including the different types of databases, and  methods for selecting a database.

What Is a Database? The basic definition of a database is a large collection of data organized for rapid search and retrieval. There are many different kinds of databases. When we talk about library databases, we are usually talking about databases that track the individual articles contained in the many magazines, journals and other periodicals that are published each year. Just as a library’s catalog lets you locate the books and journals that the library owns, the library’s databases help you locate actual articles.

When you search for articles in a database, you will always receive a citation for the article. The citation identifies the article’s author, the title, the journal or magazine the article appears in, and the date; this information allows you to find the article if the full-text is not available online.

Different Kinds of Databases: In addition to databases that contain information about magazine and journal articles, there are databases that contain other types of information. Databases can track government documents, newspaper articles, or legal information.

Besides classifying databases on the basis of the kind of information the database contains, databases can also be classified based on the subject of the information they contain. If a database contains information on a wide range of subjects, such as a database that contains articles from both the humanities and the sciences, it is called a multidisciplinary database. In contrast, if a database contains information on only one subject or discipline, it is called a subject database.

How To Select a Database: Now that you have information about the kinds of databases that are available, you might be wondering how to locate them in your library’s collection. Most libraries present their databases in two ways:  grouped together by subject and  listed alphabetically by database name.

So if you know you need a subject database, but you’re not familiar with the databases for that subject, you would use the subject grouping option. When you click on a subject, a list of databases which contain content related to that subject opens.

On the other hand if you know the name of the database you need or your instructor recommends a database, using the alphabetical listing to access the database is useful. In addition, if you know you need a multidisciplinary database, the alphabetical listing is also useful since there is often not an entry in the subject grouping specifically for multidisciplinary databases. Academic Search Premier and MasterFILE Premier are two widely available multidisciplinary databases.

So, what do you do when you’ve used the subject grouping method to access a list of databases on your subject, and you’re now faced with a list of databases you are unfamiliar with?

Browse the additional database information; this information may already be visible on the subject listing page, or you may need to look for an About or Info link to access the information.

The additional database information has several useful pieces of information. You can use the description to find out more about what kind of information the database contains, as well as to find out what topics within the subject the database focuses on. The coverage information indicates when information in the database was published; if you are looking for articles written during a specific time period, such as the 1960’s, this information is critical. The amount of full text available in the database is also described; if limited or no full-text is available in a database, this lets you know that you will need to allow time to obtain articles you find using this database by visiting a library in person, through interlibrary loan, or through a document delivery service.

Summary: In this tutorial on selecting a database, you learned  What a database is  and several methods for selecting a database.

Questions? Problems?

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