What is a database?
What is a library database?
- A library database is a searchable, electronic (online) catalog or index
- Library databases contain information about published items
- Shepard Library subscribes to many databases and provides access to these resources via WebVPN. When you're searching a database, you are not searching "the web."
What types of items are indexed by library databases?
Library databases allow you to find
- Articles in Journals/Magazines/Newspapers
- Reference Information (i.e. entries from Encyclopedias, Dictionaries, etc.)
- Books & other documents
What types of information do library databases provide?
Databases also provide citation information in various styles APA, MLA or Chicago to name a few. Citations typically consist of
- The author name or names
- The title of the article
- The title of the reference source (Journal/Magazine/Newspaper)
- The publisher
- The date of Publication
- The access link if the article is online
Some library databases provide the full text of the entire article for items they index. Full text is exactly as it sounds: the complete work either in print or electronic form.
Some library databases also provide abstracts of the items they index. Abstracts are short, descriptive summaries of articles found in scholarly journals that usually appears at the beginning of an article.
Some library databases provide bibliographies of the items they index. A bibliographic database is an organized digital collection of references to published literature, including journal and newspaper articles, conference proceedings, reports, government and legal publications, patents, books, etc. rather than complete monographs. They generally contain very rich subject descriptions in the form of keywords, subject classification terms, or abstracts. A bibliographic database may be general in scope or cover a specific academic discipline