What is a Database?
A library database is an electronic catalog, index, and digital warehouse for published materials. These materials most commonly include magazine, newspaper, and journal articles. Often, other items such as books, videos, and audio files are included as well.
Databases are highly organized and allow students to search for information on a topic by keyword, subject, author, title, and phrase. Most databases at Taft College provide access to full-text content, which means that you will find entire articles available, not just summaries or citations of articles.
How do I use a database?
Databases operate differently than Google. Instead of typing in a complete question, databases search for the keywords that you type into a search box. To be an effective online searcher, you can use search techniques that will work for databases and online search engines. The most common search technique is Boolean Searching.
You can access all of Taft College's databases from anywhere as long as you have an internet connection and use your Cougar Tracks username and password.
Boolean Searching
Boolean searching is a logical method of connecting search terms using AND, OR, and NOT (known as "Boolean Operators") to narrow, expand, or exclude information in a search.
Named after the mathematician, George Boole, Boolean operators (A set of terms (AND, OR, and NOT) that are used in between keywords and phrases to help create a more precise search.), are used as conjunctions that combine or exclude certain keywords in your search. Though Boolean operators are used in logic, mathematics, and computer science, there are three common Boolean operators used by search engines (e.g., library catalogs, academic databases, and some online search engines). Think of Boolean operators as instructions that tell a search engine what to do with your keywords. Some search tools need Boolean operators to be typed in all capital letters in order for them to work, so it is a good idea to always type them in all caps whenever you are using them.
AND – If the main idea contains two or more ideas, you’ll want to use AND to combine those terms in your search statement. To look for information about spiders as signs of climate change, you’ll want to have both terms in the search and perform an AND search. That’s what automatically happens in search engines such as Google and Bing unless you tell them to do something different by using OR,NOT, or-.
OR – If the main idea has several synonyms, use OR to combine them. Most search tools search for all terms (AND) by default, so you need to use the operator OR between terms to let them know you want to find any of the terms not documents with all the terms. For instance, in the previous example of Latino small business growth, we would want to also use the term Hispanic.
NOT – If the main idea has a common use you want to exclude, use NOT to exclude that word. For example, if we were looking for information about illegal drug use we would want to exclude prescription drugs from the search results. This is commonly done with NOT or the use of the minus (-) sign. In Google, to exclude a word use-word with no space between the – and the word you want to exclude. If you put a space in there, Google will not exclude the word.(When using some search tools, you have to use AND NOT before the word to exclude it.)
Images from “Search Statements” by Teaching & Learning, Ohio State University Libraries, licensed under CC BY 4.0