Questions about library databases

Students may ask:

What is the difference between Google and a library database for doing research?

Google or other popular internet search engines are helpful for finding many different forms of information. They include Bing, DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, Exalead, Gigablast, Google, Munax, Qwant, Yahoo!, and Yandex, among others. The main difference between research databases and internet search engines is that

Unlike search engines, databases are usually not free.

To be allowed to consult books and articles on databases, readers must be subscribers. Students and ajarns have access to these paid databases as members of the Thamamsat University community. One advantage of databases for researchers is that while many interesting and useful articles may be found on the open internet, it is not always clear which ones are acceptable for university research projects:

Articles that are available on research databases are there because they may be cited in serious research projects.

Research databases also offer features that are friendly to students and ajarns, for example allowing searches to be made according to whether publications are peer-reviewed or according to their publication date. For example, an internet search engine may provide us with links to newspapers and magazines, as well as other publishers. Only some of these will allow readers free access to content. Many will require that readers be subscribers, or at least be registered. If students are looking for articles and ebooks, it will save time to look on research databases, since they will have immediate access to whatever they find from a search. Internet search engines also turn up many entertainment websites and social media. Students and ajarns are aware that information found on social media may not be considered accurate without much further verification. So this category of what internet search engines provide is not useful for most research, unless the subject of research is the sociology of the internet or some similar theme. Students also know that some information websites such as Wikipedia cannot be cited in a serious research work because such sites have no authoritative editing for accuracy of the information provided on them, so there are many errors that go uncorrected. Again, if the subject of the research article or thesis is Wikipedia, then naturally the researcher may wish to quote from this site, but always with the understanding that what is found there may be interesting but may not be true. Among other resources found on the open internet are commercial messages from companies about their products. These advertisements cannot be taken as literal fact without further verification, since the point of these websites is to sell products first and foremost. By contrast, on research databases, readers will find scholarly and popular articles, reports, conference proceedings, ebooks, and other valuable material. They will also find trade journals provide news about a specific industry, presented for readers who are involved with a given profession. Trade journals may be good sources of information about new products in a particular industry, as well as points of view from people involved in the industry. Conference proceedings are up-to-date research in a particular subject. They may contain information that has not yet been published in scholarly journal, since journals often take a long time before they publish articles, which must be checked and verified. Conference proceedings may also tell readers about new trends in research, as well as make us familiar with creative and hardworking researchers in any field. If an ajarn has been presenting new findings at conferences and these presentations are published in conference proceedings seen internationally, chances are that the ajarn is a recognized figure in an academic field. Even if we are not looking for the latest research finds but are looking for old conference proceedings, these can tell us what research approaches were used in past years, and this may be useful information as well. Conference papers are often written by experts in different subjects, who cite their sources with documentation. Typically, conference papers are divided into parts, including the abstract, methodology, results, and conclusion. On research databases, the information is provided by publishing companies, research groups, and universities, whereas on the open internet, there is no guarantee that the source of anything is a serious researcher. The student may wonder:

What database is the right one for my research topic?

This is a question that research librarians are qualified to answer. They are experienced in guiding students to the correct database for their research subject.

(all images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)