Choosing a Database

1
Choosing a Database

• LIB 111

2
What to look for...

• Subject coverage
• General vs. Subject specific
• Think about this!
• Our library subscribes to about 2,000 periodical
  titles.There are about 150,000 periodicals
  published in the world.
• EBSCOhost Academic Search Elite indexes about
  3,400 periodicals (all disciplines)
• MEDLINE (FirstSearch) indexes 9,500 biomedical
  journals ( nursing, dentistry, etc.)
• Sociological Abstracts (FirstSearch) indexes
  1,500 journals in sociology and social work.
• Most of these articles are not available on the
  Web.

3
General databases

• Cover a broad range of topics, disciplines
• Index both popular magazines and scholarly
  journals
• EBSCOhost Academic Search Elite
• Readers Guide Abstracts (mostly popular magazines)

4
Subject databases

• Coverage is limited to a particular subject area
  or discipline
• Index mostly scholarly or trade journals
• PsycINFO
• Humanities Abstracts
• Medline

5
Other things to be aware of...

• Time period covered-- how far back
• Types of material indexed
• articles
• book chapters
• dissertations
• exhibition catalogs
• Number of periodicals indexed

6
Comparing Databases

• FirstSearch Databases
• PsycINFO
• Readers Guide Abstracts

7
Finding databases by subject