Robbins Library Notes

Today’s post will look at an outline of the common types of databases that you are likely to encounter in your research.

Always keep in mind that not all databases are created equally. Different databases do different things, and house different kinds of information. Knowing the features of the various species of databases can help you better determine where to look initially when you are setting up a search. This is part of applying Ockham’s Razor, as I outlined in my post, “Searching 101: Basic Guidelines.”

Four Species of Databases

As I view the world, there are four species of databases that you’re likely to run across when searching:

• Databases of databases — These databases aggregate (sometimes) several hundred independent databases under one overarching master database structure and search. DIALOG is a good example of this species — it contains 15 terabytes (yes, you read that correctly) of information, from full-text journals to statistics to company financial information to regulatory filings to news, and much more. It’s very unlikely that you’ll ever use DIALOG to do philosophy-related research; I offer it only as an example.
• Citation Databases — Citation databases, such as Philosopher’s Index and Arts & Humanities Citation Index, include only bibliographic information, and sometimes an abstract, of articles. So, author, title, journal, date of publication, language, and such are what you’ll find, but without the actual text of the article. Until very recently, you would have to note the citation(s) that you were most interested in, log out of the citation database, and find either an electronic version of the citation(s) in another database, or in a print copy. Now, with linking software, such as the “Find it @ Harvard” button — — you have the option of linking to the full-text articles housed in other databases directly from the citation database.
• Full-Text Databases – These databases contain the full-text of journal articles, though you’ll get the full bibliographic information for citation purposes with each record. JSTOR and Synergy are examples of this kind of database. Underneath this heading, I’d add two sub-categories:
  • Archival databases, like JSTOR, which house older issues of journals
  • Current databases, like Synergy and Project MUSE, which house current issues of journals.
• “Hybrid” Databases — This category is one I am using to encompass databases like Academic Search Premier (ASP), which have both full-text and citation-only records. Most of the records in ASP contain full-text. However, there are a good number of records that have only bibliographic information attached to them.

When to Use Them

When do you use each database?

• Databases of databases: As I noted, it’s very unlikely that you’ll ever use something like DIALOG for philosophy-related research, but, if you do, it is best employed in retrieving hard-to-locate scientific data, regulatory filings, and business-related information.
• Citation Databases: These are best used to:
  • Determine what research exists on a certain topic
  • Retrieve bibliographic information for an article so that you can locate it
  • Generate a bibliography of work by a particular scholar.
• Full-text Databases: Use these databases to locate electronic versions of articles, whether classic ones in Archival databases, or current ones in Current databases. You can generate bibliographies and citation lists from these databases, though the results will be limited to the journals housed in the databases.
• “Hybrid” Databases: These can be useful as both Citation databases and Full-text databases, depending on your search needs.

Which database you decide to use depends on what sort of information you’re looking for, which is why it’s very important to define your question right from the start.

One other thing to note: it’s likely that you’ll use at least two kinds of databases in many searches, and sometimes three, depending on where your materials are located. Here’s an example:

You come across a reference to an article by Ruth Chang’s article, “‘All Things Considered’” (Nous: Supplement, 18, pp. 1-22, 2004), while researching, and are curious to see what else she has written. So, reviewing your question, you need, initially, a bibliography of her work. The likely place to find this would be in a Citation Database, like Philosopher’s Index, which you decide to use. Logging in, you go to the “Index” search tab, because you know that you can generate bibliography of a scholar’s work directly with this function. You set the drop-down menu to “Author Index (AUI)” and enter in “chang r” for your search terms. Running the search, you return thirteen results for “chang ruth.” You click on the link on her name, and scroll through the list. When you click on the “Find It @ Harvard” button located in each record, you’ll leave the Citation Database (Philosopher’s Index), and go to Full-Text Databases of both sub-types (JSTOR and Synergy), as well as a “Hybrid” Database (Academic Search Premier) to retrieve the articles that you’re interested in viewing.

Now you know the various species of databases, their characteristics, and what they are useful for locating. Happy searching!