Database Basics

Some databases are interdisciplinary indexes to articles in newspapers, magazines, and journals (e.g. Academic Search Premier). Some index a certain type of publication such as newspapers (Proquest Newsstand Complete). Some cover a single field in depth, including books as well as articles (e.g. MLA, ATLA, PsycInfo). Some contain full text, some just citations, and others a mix of both.And then there are full-text archives of journals that are searchable (e.g. JSTOR, Project Muse).

You can afford to be far more specific in your search terms when looking for shorter pieces of writing such as articles than when looking for books. The trick is deciding which terms to use. Be prepared to rethink your search multiple times and use an advanced search option when available. Note: terminology is probably hardest to pin down in the humanities. In these fields, tracking down cited works and browsing play an especially important role in research.

Like catalogs, some databases use "controlled vocabulary" and may have a searchable thesaurus that explains which terms are used as headings (in databases, typically called "descriptors"). Always scan to the bottom of a record to see if there are additional or alternative terms you can use to search a topic. And see if there is an "advanced search" option that offers more precision and options for combining terms or searching specific fields such as author or journal.

Hints:

• Use quotation marks around words that are part of a phrase: "Broadway musicals." For some databases you need to use parentheses instead: (broadway musicals)
  
• Use AND to connect words that must appear in a document: Ireland AND peace. (In some search engines - Google, for example - "and" is assumed, so you don't need to type it between words.)
  
• Use NOT in front of words that must not appear in a document: Titanic NOT movie.
  
• Use OR if only one of the terms must appear in a document: "mountain lion" OR cougar.
  
• Use an asterisk as a substitute for letters that might vary: "marine biolog*" (to find marine biology or marine biologist). In some systems this "wildcard" symbol may be ? or #.
  
• Use parentheses to group a search expression and combine it with another: (cigarettes OR tobacco OR smok*) AND lawsuits.
  

Other limiters may be available, such as finding only scholarly articles or magazine articles in a general database (an option with Academic Search Premier), only full text articles, or by publication date.

Some databases are beginning to include cited works in their indexing, so you can click on a link to find works that cited the item you've located. This is an interesting way to see connections among works. Web of Science is the database that has the most developed citation search feature.

Most general databases, with some exceptions, contain only publications from the most recent twenty-five years or so.

Going from a database citation to the work itself

Unlike a library's catalog, databases are not keyed to a local library collection. Here are the steps you must take to move from a citation in a database to the actual work.

Is it a book or an article from a newspaper, magazine or journal? If a book, check the catalog; if an article, check the Journal Locator.

If it is not here, you can get a copy in most cases through Interlibrary Loan. For books, it's easiest to make requests through MnLINK; for articles you may either print out the citation, write your barcode and name at the top and drop it off at the ILL counter, or fill out the online form. Note: some databases (ATLA, MLA, PsycInfo, and others through the CSA interface) have an ILL button on each record; this is handy because it fills out all the blanks for you other than your personal information.

Exercises:

Compare three different databases by searching for the same topic in all three. Choose a topic of your own or try one of the following:

• How reliable is eyewitness testimony?
• File-sharing: does it have a positive or negative effect on music sales?
• What are the pros and cons of charter schools?
• To qualify for certain kinds of federal funding, school and public libraries must use Internet filters to block pornography and other materials "harmful to minors." How well do they work?
• What are the issues surrounding the Kennewick Man skeleton and what is its current legal status?

What search terms work best? What kinds of sources do you find? How many options do you have for narrowing a search? What are strengths and weaknesses of each database? Are there ways to export search results to RefWorks? 

Look up older articles using the New York Times Index and The Reader's Guide to Periodicals. Choose one historical event from the 20th century and look it up in both sources. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using these indexes? 

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