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CVTC Technology Resource Library's Tutorial
Searching Online Databases
A database is an organized collection of information usually pertaining to a particular subject. There are many kinds of databases; the most common type in the library is an online electronic periodical database. These databases cover a variety of periodical titles and identify articles published in magazines, journals and newspapers. They provide citation information, may contain an abstract, and many also contain full text articles.
Choosing the appropriate database is an essential part of research. Most library databases specialize in a particular subject. There are databases for business, nursing, education, sciences, etc. Knowing what type of information you are looking for will make your selection easier. The CVTC Library offers many databases, and a description of each database is given to help aid in your selection.
Keyword Searching
Keyword searching is the most flexible type of search that can be performed on an electronic database. The search term can appear anywhere in the record, including author, title, subject, and content fields. Keyword searches can be as simple as a single word or very complex using Boolean operators, searchable fields and truncation.
Combining Terms using Boolean Operators
Use Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT to tell search engines which keywords you want your results to include or exclude. When you want to find articles containing two or more ideas, use the word AND between the keywords. This means that all terms must appear somewhere in the record. AND is used to narrow a search. Example: travel and Europe. Use OR to broaden the search by combining search terms so that result contains at least one of the terms. Example: college or university. Using NOT restricts the search by excluding terms so the search result does not contain any of the terms that follow it. Example: television not cable.
Truncation or wildcard symbols may be used to create searches where there are unknown characters, multiple spellings, or various endings. Replace an unknown character with a question mark (?). Using wom?n will bring results that include the term woman or women. Replace the end of a word with an asterisk (*) to locate all forms of that term. Using educat* will bring results that include the term education, educating, or any other variation.
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