Exploring article databases

EXERCISE: Database Comparison¶

Article databases provide additional functionality to guide subject-specific queries. In this exercise, you will select two databases from the “A-Z Databases” list for Engineering on the Library’s website (https://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/az.php?s=4516) and evaluate their relevance to your topic.

You can also use Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.com) for comparison. Use the same keyword search in both databases.

Example¶

Our example query is: permafrost melt

We have searched for those keywords in a database called GeoRef (https://libproxy.berkeley.edu/login?qurl=http://search.proquest.com/georef/advanced?accountid=14496).

	Example
Database Name	GeoRef
Relevance of results	Manageable results (539 articles), but all are relevant
Types of publications (journal articles, conference papers, patents, books)	Journals articles, conference abstracts
Search functionalities (keyword, structure search, CAS number)	limit to peer review
Features (sorting, format, ability to export/save, citation information)	sorting, export, no citation info
Ease of getting the full text	easy - UC elinks

Your turn¶

What is your topic?

Try searching your topic in two databases.
Get examples here: https://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/az.php?s=4516

Edit the table below with your observations.

Questions¶

What did you notice about the two databases?
Which features are most useful?
How do the library-subscribed databases differ from Google Scholar?