You are watching the video understanding bibliographical databases from the finding information series. This is Anna. This is max. They are studying at tu. Berlin and are both writing an academic paper their supervisor has advised them to search in a bibliographical database max and Anna go to the economics and management library to get some advice they ask the librarian miss Miller why it is so important to search in a bibliographical database when writing an academic paper ms mella explains to them that bibliographical databases sometimes known as article databases or specialized bibliographies contain references to scholarly publications on clearly defined content or disciplines they usually list journal articles or contributions from edited books sometimes conference proceedings and other types of publication that are not indexed in detail in the knowledge portal. Primo max wants to know how publications are included in a database. Ms mella explains that literature is selected by the database host. He decides which journals edited books and so on are indexed only publications corresponding to the content criteria of the respective database are included unlike in search engines it is therefore always clear which databases you are searching in. In contrast to the internet data within a database is also more clearly structured. Each publication contains details about author title year of publication and publication type which are entered in separate data fields searches can therefore be restricted to these data fields formal details such as name of author title year of publication type of publication etc are supplemented in bibliographical databases by a description of the content. This takes the form of abstracts or subject. Headings subject headings are assigned by qualified staff and ensure that the content of all publications in a database is described uniformly relevant sources can be found more easily and quickly in this way. Anna remembers that her supervisor stressed that her literature search should be verifiable miss.

Miller explains that this is not the case with internet searches. Search results may vary from one day to the next in a database however the hits from the original search can be retrieved again at a later date this has to do with the data structure and the transparency of the content. Anna has to do is document her search strategy maxon. Anna now understand why databases are so useful for their research. They want to get started straight away. Ms mella is glad she has been of assistance. She and her colleagues are happy to help with other questions either in person or by email at info competence at WMT ulan-ude.