Contextual Databases

Contextual Types of Databases

Databases provide various formats of information. Different databases provide different kinds of information. Text, graphics and audio information grouped by what they have in common.

Bibliographic Databases

Bibliographic databases provide a descriptive record of an item, but the item itself is not provided in the database. Information about the item is provided, including such things as author, title, subject, publisher, etc. The information provided is called a citation. Sometimes a short summary or abstract of the item is provided as well. Examples - GALILEO database and the Internet Movie .

Full Text Database

A full-text database provides the full-text of a publication. For instance, Research Library in GALILEO provides not only the citation to a journal article, but often the entire text of the article as well. Another example is “CollegeSource Online", which offers full-text of 20,000 college catalogs, providing students with the ability to compare several colleges rather than having to request a catalog from each college.

Numeric Database

Numeric databases provide information, such as statistics or demographic information. Examples - The Census Bureau databases and databases containing stock market information.

MultiMedia Databases

Multimedia databases contain only images, [EBSCOhost image collection], audio information [MP3] and video [.wav] files, or a combination of any of the above types. An example is CNN's site search giving access to news articles and the original video and audio files that accompanied them.

Meta Databases

Meta-databases are databases that allow one to search for content that is indexed by other databases.

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