Types of online databases

There are basically three types of databases:

Bibliographic databases

Bibliographic databases are lists of citations which describe titles, authors, subjects and other information about written works. It does not include the text of those works.

The library catalog is the bibliographic database which describes the books, videotapes, periodicals and compact discs the library has in its collection. To read the book, or listen to a CD, you would need to find the physical item on the library's shelf.

Periodical indexes are bibliographic databases which contain lists of citations which describe magazine, journal and/or newspaper articles. You can search for a subject or keywords to find a list of articles about that topic. To read the article, you would need to find the periodical issue which contains the article.

Full-text databases

Full-text databases include the entire text of written works. A full-text database may contain magazine or journal articles, company financial data, or articles from an encyclopedia. For a list of the Library's databases which contain at least some full-text, see the Additional Resources section at the end of this tutorial.

Combination databases

Many of the databases contain a combination of the bibliographic records for some items and both the record and the full-text of other items. Some publishers encourage databases to print the citation for their articles because it increases the demand for their periodicals. But, they do not allow the full-text articles from their print publications to be distributed online because they believe it limits their ability to sell subscriptions. For more on finding the full-text or an article, see "Reality Check" below.

In this tutorial we focus mainly on periodical indexes as combination databases. These indexes have traditionally been print reference works (like Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature) which list bibliographic citations by subject. In recent times, the records in these indexes were transfered to computer. Then, the text of some of the articles was scanned and added to the database.

Periodical indexes

When you search a periodical index for a subject it refers you to articles in specific issues of magazines, journals and/or newspapers. The articles are described using a citation which tells you the title of the article, the author's name, and the periodical issue in which the article appears.

A periodical index or database may also contain the full-text of the articles themselves. As you can imagine, it requires a lot of storage space to store the entire text of thousands of articles. The Internet has provided a great way to store, search, and access bibliographic and full-text databases.

An instructional video, Finding Articles on Your Topic, provides an online demontration of the basic steps in the process. Consult the complete list of the videos in our How to Video Series for the system requirements for playing these presentations.

Reality check! Where's the full-text? Isn't everything online?

While there are many more full-text articles available through Pasports than ever before, every article you want is NOT available full-text. Here are other places to search to determine if our library has access to the text online or if Emerson, or another area library, holds print issues of the periodical.

1. Check our Journal, Magazine, Newspaper A-Z List located on our Web site. This list will tell you if the periodical you want is available in print at Emerson or full-text in one of our online databases.
2. Check the library catalog to see if the library subscribes to the print periodical.
3. If the article is not full-text online, can you wait 5-7 business days for us to get the article for you? St. Louis area Webster/Eden students may use our Interlibrary Loan service to request an article. Extended campus patrons may use our Document Delivery service. Both of these services are free of charge!
4. Can't wait, and want to see if your local library has a print subscription? Patrons in Missouri may search MOBIUS to see if another academic library in the state has what you need. Although you can't order articles through MOBIUS, you can see if a library in your area has the publication.
5. For extended campus patrons, check out our Worldwide Library Catalogs page. Most library catalogs give information about periodical holdings in the library's collection.

The bottom line: just because the full-text is not online, it does not mean that you cannot obtain a copy of the article!

Continue to the with Next to learn how searching a Library database is different than searching the Internet.