Know Thy Database

When I started library school it was all a bit confusing: What is a database, who puts them together, what’s in them, why are there so many different ones, which is the best one, etc. I was so naïve and didn’t think of the money involved in such things.

I like to think of an aggregated database as a big box. It is a place for storing information. Or you can imagine it as a filing cabinet. This cabinet could be Ebsco, Infotrac or Thomson Gale, ProQuest or any of the aggregators available out there.

Inside filing cabinet are folders. Imagine folders as individual databases bought by the aggregators. They could be a database of magazines, academic journals, newspaper articles, collection of online books, etc. These folders contain papers in them. These papers contain the information within the databases - the actual article. Does that make sense?

As a librarian, your job is to know what your filing cabinet contains so you can serve your patrons better. Every drawer in the filing cabinet could be a different aggregator. To makes things more interesting your organization might have various ways in which you can access these cabinets. Choose the best one for the question thrown at you and you will have a good day!