University of Szeged Klebelsberg Library
This lesson explores the interfaces of some of the major databases that the SZTE Klebelsberg Library provides access to.
The majority of the electronic documents available at the SZTE Klebelsberg Library are contained in international subscription-based databases*.
Database
A database is an organized collection of records that consist of several data fields. It may also be regarded as a computer data file that is logically structured to allow for the storage and retrieval of information.
The number of documents accessible through the Library in such databases actually exceeds the number of documents available in print.
Most of them are full-text* databases:
Some of them are bibliographic databases, containing only metadata:
Full-text
Science Direct is a multidisciplinary database of e-journals and e-books from Elsevier.
It is the leading full-text database for the academic community.
SpringerLink is a multidisciplinary full-text database of Springer’s e-journals and e-books.
Springer is the second/third largest academic publishing company in the world.
Wiley Online is a multidisciplinary full-text database of Wiley-Blackwell’s e-journals and e-books.
Wiley-Blackwell is the second/third largest academic publishing company in the world.
JSTOR is the most significant data aggregator* in the field of the humanities.
It provides a multidisciplinary database that contains archived e-journals and e-books from major publishing companies. In addition to full-text articles, it also contains a significant amount of bibliographic data.
Data aggregator
A database that provides a collection of resources from multiple publishers.
Scopus and Web of Science are the world’s two largest bibliographic databases for citation search. The most significant journals, books, and conference materials in all fields of science are indexed in these databases. They serve as tools for the exploration and tracking of the world’s scientific publications in the broadest possible range and depth.
Scopus is the product of the publishing company Elsevier, while Web of Science (WoS) is the product of the database company Clarivate. Scopus contains a wider range of document titles (with nearly 40,000 journal titles), while WoS provides a more in-depth and chronologically extensive coverage (from 1900 to the present, with the Hungarian subscription containing documents from 1975 onwards). In terms of market share, there is significant competition between the databases of the two companies.
Both companies have developed proprietary reference management systems: Elsevier’s reference manager is called Mendeley, Clarivate’s is called EndNote.
When it comes to searching in online databases, it would be fair to assume that a typical Google search will also work for such databases. However, most library databases are protected by a firewall that prevents Google from getting through to them, which essentially means that they are invisible to Google’s search engine. For this reason, the use of the library’s catalogue and its online resources search services is preferred, as these tools can perform out searches even in databases that Google cannot query.