A database is a structured collection of records or data.
The ISU Library provides access to many electronic databases that are useful for research, study, and knowledge acquisition. Some are available for free to anyone but some are provided through a subscription paid by the Indiana State University Library.
Electronic databases use a search engine to access and retrieve relevant records. The patron enters into the search engine terms relevant to what he wants to know and the search engine retrieves records with those terms according to whatever rules were programmed into that search engine. Different search engines work differently. And different databases contain different records within them so it is useful to search more than one database if you are researching a topic thoroughly.
