Searching

Records: the building blocks of databases. A record lists the elements that describe an information source.

Some records may include the entire text of a source (full-text records) or provide a link to the text, while most provide just descriptive information (e.g. title, author, subjects, etc.)

Fields: the building blocks of records; these are the sections of a record where one type of information is stored.

For example, your driver's license or ID card is a record about you with fields describing your name, eye color, height, address, and so on. When searching a database, you can search for matches in specific fields. Field names can vary, but in library databases author, title, subject, publisher, and publication date are common. <<previous pg. | next pg.>>