Information Literacy Instructional Program

Information Literacy Learning Guides

Key Concepts & Practice

Database Searching

Database searching includes Internet database searching through search engines such as Google and Yahoo or databases such as InfoTrac and National News 5. Many of the principles and techniques are the same. No two online or Web database search engines are alike.

There are two basic methods of searching : keyword searching and subject searching.

Freetext or keyword searching simply looks for the occurrence of a word or phrase usually within the title or abstract of an article. The word or phrase needs only to have been mentioned to be picked up by the search therefore the actual content of the article itself may not be relevant.

Controlled vocabulary or subject searching usually gives a more precise search as the terms used to index the article have been assigned by someone looking at the subject content of that article. References on the subject searched for will be retrieved, the word or phrase searched will not necessarily appear in the title or abstract of the article on the database.

What are the limitations of databases?

No single database includes everything. Databases are limited by such factors as:

• Subject       Some are specific to a particular subject, such as Grove's Dictionary of Music ; while others encompass a variety of subjects like the Issues & Controversies.
• Date coverage       All are limited by the date range of information included. An article database may cover only the most recent five years; a library catalog includes books published in all years.
• Size    All are limited by the number of items included.
• Publications indexed       All databases are limited by a finite set of books, journals, articles, conference proceedings, etc. that they index. Even a database with a specific subject focus may not index all publications in that field.
• Updates       These can be done on a daily, monthly, quarterly, or even yearly basis.
• Bibliographic or full-text         Some contain only a citation (where to locate the article) and abstract (summary) for an item, whereas others include the full-text of the original item