Types of Library Databases
All library databases are relational databases. As opposed to flat file databases, relational databases employ a much more logical structure in the way it stores data. Relational database use multiple tables to represent objects. For example a table called book could contain columns attributed to title, author, ISBN etc. Most library databases in schools can be categorized under three headings: INDEXING or BIBLIOGRAPHIC databases, FULLTEXT databases and COMBINATION databases.
Creating a Database using MS Access 2003- Indexing Databases - these databases (also called bibliographic databases) provide citations (and sometimes abstract) that describe titles, authors, subjects and other information about written works however it does not provide access to full-text of those work. This library catalogue is a good example of bibliographic database since it only lists the books, periodicals, videotapes, DVD's etc the library has in its collection. There is no mention of any full-text article, for instance. To read the book the user needs to physically locate the item on the shelf.
- Fulltext databases - these databases provide access to the entire text of magazine, periodical or encyclopedia articles, pdfs, e-books and CD-ROMS.
- Combination databases - these databases contain a mixture of citations and full text articles i.e it contains bibiliographic records for some items and both the record and the full-text of other items.
It should be noted here school/ university library databases may be organized differently based on the nature of the information they contain. For instance the University of Illinois Library database is organized into general interest, discipline-specific and subject-specific databases.
Apart from the poster given below these websites also provide good materials for learning and using Microsoft Access to develop and use databases in schools.
