What is a Database?

A database is a searchable online collection of information. Think of searching in a database like searching through an online library catalog like Housatonic Search. The contents of a database's "library" depends on the scope of the database, aka the extent of the database's range of contents. Some are for specific fields of study like Psychology and mostly contain scholarly articles, some are catalogs of full-text literary books, some keep track of business and stock datasets, etc.

Keep reading to learn how to choose the best databases for your research topic!

Image: "Database" by christophe.benoit74 is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Which One Should I Use?

After you've identified a research topic or question, you can choose a database to explore based on the nature of your interest in that topic. In other words, what's your angle? Whose opinions or data do you want to consult? For example, if you're writing a Psychology research paper you're going to want information published by professional psychologists, so PsycInfo would be a perfect database for you!

The database you choose will be based on whether the scope (aka the range of relevant materials it claims to have) of the database includes your topic and the perspective you're looking at it from. While there's no single right answer for choosing a database, the library makes it easy to determine the scope of our databases by organizing them by subject in the A-Z Databases list. Many databases focus on specific academic Subjects with content that fall into categories like English, History, Biology, etc.

Some databases are Multidisciplinary, meaning that they contain resources from more than one subject. If you're not quite sure what subject your research topic falls under, read the descriptions of some of these databases and see if they seem related to your topic. They will often have something related to your search, but be aware that there may not be relevant enough sources in these databases if your research topic is very narrow. Check out all these resources via the A-Z list of Multidisciplinary Databases.

Remember that you're never married to one single database for a search! Feel free to experiment with Multidisciplinary Databases and Subject Databases, collecting sources from both when it is useful.

Finding Scholarly Sources with Databases

Researching with databases is the most efficient way to directly access academic journal articles and peer-reviewed scholarly information. This is because databases allow you to use search filters to narrow your search results to only the highest quality and scholarly types of sources.

For step-by-step instructions on how to use a database to find scholarly articles, check this short video: