What is a database?
It is an organized collection of information that allows a user to search for a particular topic, article, or book. You can search for these in a variety of ways. For example: with keywords, subject, author, or title.
Information found through internet search engines such as Google are free, but the best information is costly. Library subscriptions are purchased because these databases contain scholarly peer-reviewed articles in periodicals (magazines). SRC library services pay a fee to database providers in order to access these licensed collections.
Library databases allow you to efficiently search for published information such as magazine, journal, and newspaper articles. Library databases can be general (all disciplines) or discipline-specific (e.g. a psychology database).
Accessing Databases from Off Campus
Access is available to students on all SRC campuses and from off campus with your my.src.edu (MySRC) gmail logon. When prompted, select SRC gmail. You will be redirected to the SRC Single-sign-on (SSO) to sign in to use any of our online databases form off campus. For more information, check out the OpenAthens Libguide.
| Library Databases | The Internet |
|---|---|
|
Purchased by libraries |
Free to anyone |
|
Content is evaluated for authority and accuracy, and is licensed for electronic distribution |
Anyone can publish to the internet |
|
Information is stable |
Websites come and go |
|
Organized and indexed by professionals so the content can be accessed and updated |
No official body oversees the organization and evaluation of sources found on a specific page |
|
Can search by specific subject headings and descriptors |
Only searches by matching the keyword entered by the user |
|
Can search in specific fields such as author and title |
Difficult to narrow your search, your result list is often a mix of information |
|
Can limit search results |
This database provides a series of controversial essays that present multiple sides of a current issue.
This database contains over 1,000,000 statistics for researching quantitative data.
You can find a longer list of the databases available to SRC students here on this A to Z page with descriptions on what information each of these databases contain.