What can I find in databases? (3/19)

In a database you will primarily find individual articles from academic journals and edited collections. What is so special about it? Well, first, individual articles, as a rule, are not listed in library catalogues. You can only search library catalogues for whole books and journals. Second, most recent developments in every field of research are usually published in journal articles. One of the reason for that is that the process of writing and publishing an article is significantly shorter than publication of a book.

Individual articles are listed in subject databases together with additional information, such as, for example, abstracts or keywords from a subject thesaurus. This helps to limit the search focus (see chapter 4 “How do I search effectively?” for more details). Databases can encompass a large canon of subjects, such as, e.g., JSTOR or Web of Science or they can have a subject focus such as, e.g. MLA (Modern Language Association International Bibliography) or WISO. On the next page, you will learn more about finding the right databases for your subject.