A library database is a collection of citations of published research resources. This is a fancy way of saying that it is a specialized search engine that contains only published materials, which can range from newspaper and magazine articles, scholarly articles, conference reports, dissertations and theses, and more.
The big difference between a search engine like Google and a database is that databases contain only published material. It's actually easier to search in a library database because you don't have to sift through unpublished sources like blog posts, and you know that the information already has a level of credibility. As you'll read in the next tab of this guide, you still need to evaluate your sources, regardless of where you find them! For now, though, read more about generating keywords and learn how to search a library database!
