Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Databases

Again, what is a database?

It's an organized collection of data. Normally, we think of databases online, but technically, that doesn't have to be the case. (There were databases in computers before the Internet was around.) But for our use, we're looking at purely online databases. These are collections of data (think of an online library) that are easily searchable via a web-based search interface.

Now, we need to remember that database is not the same as search engine. The latter is often used to search the former, but there is a distinction.

What I want to introduce you to are certain major-related or career-related databases that may be of use to you. I'll only present a few right now:

Business/Accounting
Microsoft Academic Search

Medical Assisting/Medical Administrative Assisting
Circumpolar Health Bibliographic Database (University of Calgary)

Human Resources
Microsoft Academic Search

Criminal Justice
National Criminal Justice Reference Service

Technology (Database, Security, etc.)
Citebase Search (U. of Southampton)
CiteSeerX (Penn State University)

Liberal Arts
ERIC: Institute of Education Sciences

Graphic Design
Artcyclopedia
DeviantArt

Today, we'll be looking at a few of these. I'll be adding more throughout the semester. The goal: to get you to better understand what kinds of databases are out there and are available to you, and which ones can be helpful to you during your college career.

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