Why Databases?

Databases in Academic Research

This page lists some database applications for research that may need to be conveyed to students in a discipline.

Databases are traditionally associated with business applications like maintaining personnel records, but databases are widely used in academic research as well. Below is a sample of some applications in academic research using databases.

Note: Links to Penn State Library databases may require a Penn State login.

Searchable Bibliographies

Many students and faculty use the Penn State Library Databases or the CAT to search for relevant citations or books for a project, but some departments have created specialized public bibliographic databases targeting certain topics.

In addition, the EndNote bibliography software not only stores citations for a paper, but can import data from the Libraries Databases.

Sample External Bibliographic Databases

RAMBI (Jewish Studies) - Allows input in both English and Hebrew
PrimateLit - Database for primitology
Penn Syntax Bibliography - Collects just syntax citations in the field of linguistics.
Almisbah Middle Eastern Links Database - Links for a variety of Middle Eastern and Islamic resources.

Top of Page

Image Archives

One resource that instructors frequently need are images for use in coursework. Although it is not legal to indiscriminately scan or download images, there are image archives which are either public domain (most uses legal) or licensed for educational, non-profit use. See each site for details. Below is a sample of some image databases which can provide images to instructors.

Don't forget that creating a link is legal.

Sample Image Databases

Online Art Archives (Penn State Only) - A list of image archives available to Penn State instructors and students. The AMICO art archive, in particular, offers many images for non-profit use.
AICT (Art Images for College Teaching) - Images are available to educational use. Snapshots are black and white, but actual images are larger and in full color.
SEASite Southeast Asia Picture Database - For non-commercial use.
CARLA Virtual Picture Album (Languages) - Organized by country and free for non-commercial use.
C.D.C PHIL Image Database - Public domain images from the Center for Disease Control.

Archiving Artifacts or Collections

Databases are useful for archiving a collection and making it searchable. Fields can include information relevant to the collection, making data reporting easier.

Sample Database Archives

National Gallery of Art Search Page
Quilt Index (Michigan State)
Stanford Digital Forma Urbis Romae Project - A database containing the 28 pieces of the Ancient Roman map. This project is trying to reconstruct the original map.
"Medicine and Madison Avenue" Medical Ads - View ads for medical products from 1900-1960

Top of Page

Full Text Archives

Searchable collections of texts are immensely valuable to researchers as well. Databases can be organized to search for particular documents, search within documents or both.

Metadata: Searching Among Documents

If a database is housing a set of full text documents, images, multimedia or other content, then it is usually necessary to set up search criteria to look for appropriate documents. When a database houses both full-text content and search criteria, the search criteria is sometimes called metadata. A non-electronic example of metadata would be a bibliography which lists publication information about the book or article in question.

NOTE: Some databases contain metadata only because the actual documents are housed somewhere else. These would include citation-only databases or a bibliography.

Sample Full Text Databases From the Library

Links to News Source Databases - These databases include full text articles
Westlaw Campus Legal Database
Encyclopedia Britannica Online
Libraries English Literature Full Text Database - Scroll down page to see links. Includes early novels, poetry, African American and women writers and Middle English
Old English Corpus
Bible in English - search across multiple translations beginning in 1568
ARTFL French and Provençal Literature - Also includes Old French
Thesaurus Linguae Graecae - Full Greek language texts from Homer to the Byzantine Era

External Samples

Library of Congress American Memory - Links to various multimedia collections about different aspects of American history. Collections can include text, images, or audio as appropriate.
Cornell Saganet of Medieval Icelandic Literature
Rutgers Optimality Phonology Archive - Scholars can post and download papers on different aspects of phonology in linguistics.
Afro Louisiana History and Geneology - Archive of state slave importation records in Louisiana from 1719-1820 with a summary of statistical results.

Newspapers and Search Engines

Google - Google is essentially a database with metadata (i.e. topics covered) about other Websites. See Google Advanced search to see the other metadata criteria available.
Other newspaper sites, like the Centre Daily Times, Daily Collegian , New York Times, Washington Post and many others allow users to search for and read articles based on topic and other metadata.

Top of Page

Statistical Analysis

Data tables are often imported into statistical analysis packages such as SPSS or SAS so that trends can be detected.

Top of Page

Geographic Analysis

The new field of Geographic Information Analysis or G.I.S. specializes in plotting sets of data points over a map of a geographic region. These data sets typically include some sort of geographic coordinates or a set of locations coded to a set of geographic coordinates. Here are some examples of databases using geographic coordinates.
Note: Special software may be needed for many applications.