Using computers to search electronic databases Samuel T. Ramos, Jr., MCM University of Santo Tomas Faculty of Arts & Letters

Most of the access tools that you will use in communication research--especially library catalogues and periodicals indexes—will be available only as electronic databases. Catalogues and indexes are bibliographic databases, one of the types of databases that we discuss. You will also need to search other types of database: directories, statistical sources, and the full text of books, newspapers, journals, and other periodicals. The World Wide Web(WWW) itself can be thought of as a database—either one large database or several smaller, more specialized databases.

A researcher who is reluctant to use computers to find information or who does not know how to do so effectively will be severely handicapped. Fortunately, learning to search databases well involves learning some basic concepts and standard searching procedures that can then be applied in many different situations. The search interfaces used by different database vendors usually offer only slight variations of these concepts and procedures.

Differing environment The electronic environment you find on your campus might vary considerably from that at another university. This is partly because technology has provided libraries with many options. For example, libraries are able to select different versions of standard databases from a variety of vendors. Each database has a different search interface, covers different time periods, and may or may not include other features such as the full text of articles cited. So a database you search in one library may look quite different when you search it in a library across town.

Varieties of computerized databases A database is information stored in such a way that it can be retrieved. Catalogues and periodical indexes– in fact, all the reference sources discussed—are examples of databases. They are organized so that you can easily find what you are looking for. A computerized database is simply information stored electronically, to be retrieved via a computer. Such databases greatly increase the flexibility for retrieving information.

Bibliographic databases Bibliographic databases consist of citations to published literature, often with abstract, or short summaries. They correspond to print periodical indexes and abstracts. Computerized library catalogues are also examples of bibliographic database. At the conclusion of their search, users of these databases will usually still need to locate the actual publications cited, although many periodical indexes do now include online (or link to) the full text of at least some of the publications they cite.

Directory databases Also, called referral databases, correspond to printed directories and contain references to organizations, people, grants, archives, research projects, and so on. Although some directory databases contain summaries or abstracts, researchers most often use these databases to locate a primary information source. A directory database of possible interest to communication researchers is the Encyclopedia of Association

Source databases In contrast, source database contain such complete information that after consulting them you may not need to continue the search for information. This category includes statistical, full-text, image, and multimedia databases. Statistical databases consist primarily of statistical or other numeric data and are somewhat equivalent to statistical compendia. Full-text databases contain the complete text of publications such as journals, newspapers, wire service stories, court decisions, encyclopedias, almanacs, and other books.

Image databases consist of graphic images, such as photographs, representations of works of art, and textual material. Textual material available in this manner is simply reproduction of the printed page and cannot be searched interactively. Many periodicals are available as part of image databases. The WWW is a rich repository of many other types of image databases, photographs, manuscripts, representation of artworks, illustrations, and other image have been collected and are searchable at their web site of origin. Multimedia databases include, in addition to text and graphics, audio and video components.

How to search computerized databases Computerized databases can be deceptively easy to search. When novice searchers type the first topical word or phrase that occurs to them into a bibliographic database and retrieve some citations to articles on their topics, they may be satisfied with the results. They may not, however, realize that they have failed to identify many other, sometime more appropriate, articles. Or they may spend hours browsing through hundreds of citations, not realizing that they could easily have narrowed their search and obtained more manageable results.

Standard search features The search features that we describe next are so widely used that they can be termed “standard.” Their implementation varies from one system to another, but the concepts involved remain the same.

Controlled vocabulary versus keyword searching Keyword searching, also called free-text searching, is often effective in locating citations on a topic, but it does have drawbacks. First, because language is imprecise, it is likely that at least some records retrieved will match the words entered but will not actually be on the topic intended. Controlled vocabulary that is used in a systematic way to describe the subject of articles and books. Subject terms (called subject headings or descriptors) are assigned to each record and are listed in the subject (or descriptor) field for each item.