Tarleton State University Libraries Unit 3 LIBRARY DATABASES   Tarleton Libraries' Online Databases help users locate citations and abstracts (brief summaries)for articles in periodicals. Many databases also offer online access to full text articles. Tarleton libraries subscribe to many databases designed to enhance patrons' access to research materials. A database is an organized collection of information, usually pertaining to a particular subject. Many different types of databases are available online (e.g. numeric, image, bibliographic, etc.). Tarleton libraries' databases are primarily online periodical indexes (bibliographic databases), which help users locate articles for research. Library databases can be searched in a variety of ways (keyword, subject, author, title, etc.) and yield lists of results for successful queries. These results will include at least one of the following: •  article citation, •  article citation plus abstract, or •  article citation plus full text article. Also, databases cover a wide variety of subjects. Some are multidisciplinary like the databases Academic Search Premier, Article First, and Electronic Collections Online. Others are subject-specific like the databases Applied Science & Technology Abstracts, Business & Company Resource Center, Business Source Premier, and Sociological Collection. To help users choose databases appropriate to their information needs, Tarleton libraries offer a Guide to Online Databases, which gives brief descriptions of the databases to which the libraries subscribe. Library databases are useful •  when you need periodical articles and citations, •  when you know a subject, but not a specific article, •  when you are researching from off-campus locations, •  when you want to search multiple years at one time, and •  when you want to easily combine search terms or perform different kinds of searches (keyword, subject, title, etc.) Unit 7 offers in-depth instructions for using the libraries' databases.   Periodical Indexes & Abstracts Internet Search Tools   Library Orientation Site Index Updated 7/2004