Course Syllabus | Library Resources | About this Project | Updated February 20, 2003
Making the Most of Database Records
Sometimes abstracts or summaries are part of a database record, sometimes they are not.
A "record" of a book or article refers to the information provided in a database about the book or article, organized into fields. Author, Title, Abstract, and Publisher are examples of fields, and often they correspond to search options. Not all databases have the option to search an abstract (summary). Morevoer, different electronic resources sometimes require different search techniques, especially when there are fewer words contained in each field.
Compare this record of a book in CONSORT (figure a) that lists a table of contents with a record of an article in the MLA Bibliography (figure b) below. Which record helps you better assess whether this item will be useful? Think about how these two different items might require different search terms/strategies. Finally, a full-text search in JSTOR brings up another article (figure c), which at the top lists the pages where terms made a match. Do you think that searching in the abstract or title fields might bring you more relevant materials than searching all of the words of the article? Why or why not?
Figure B. Record from the MLA Bibliography
Figure C. Full Text from JSTOR
