2.1a Learn More - What is an Electronic Database?

An electronic database is a searchable collection of records. These records consist of different types of information that relate in some way to the record. This information is put in categories called fields.

Many businesses, institutions, and yes - libraries, use electronic databases to manage and organize information.

Here is an example:

If you do business with certain companies, your customer information is usually stored in an electronic database. Our example database is called: The Dot Com Music Store Customer Information Database.

Each customer of the Dot Com Music Store will have his or her own record. Information about the customer is entered into a number of fields, as outlined below:

Record of: Jennifer Q. Customer

When Jennifer calls Dot Com Music Store with an order or question, the customer service representative asks Jennifer for her customer number or last name so that they can search for her record and access all of Jennifer's information.

Each book and video in CannonCat, and each article in the Library's many online databases have their own individual record. The names of the fields are different, but the principle is the same. Many databases and CannonCat offer basic searches that search all fields, that is, they search the entire record for your search terms. You will also usually have the option of selecting the specific field that you want to search: author, title, subject, etc.

Here is a sample record from CannonCat; note the fields (Holdings, Author, Title, etc.)on the left side of the image and the corresponding information on the right. The search terms used for this search (media, bias) are highlighted.