A database is a collection of information that is organized for easy retrieval. When you hear a librarian talking about a database, they are usually talking about a collection of article citations that can be accessed through a variety of means (article author, article title, subject headings, key words, etc).
All databases have citations for the articles that they index (keep track of). Some of the databases actually contain the full text of the article. As a general rule, the more specific the database that you are searching, the less likely it is that it will contain full text articles.
Students and faculty can access any of the databases that Campbell subscribes to from off campus. What you need to do is go to the library homepage (www.lib.campbell.edu) and click on the link that says "Databases". This will take you to the database page.
What you will see is an alphabetical listing of all the databases that Campbell subscribes to. Underneath the database name there is a description of the contents of the database. Using these descriptions, select a database that you wish to search and click on it. At this point you will be asked to enter your username and password. Your username is your WebAccess username. Your password is your WebAccess password. If you do not know what your WebAccess username and password are, go to the web access page (http://wa.campbell.edu). If you have any problems with your username and password you will need to contact computing services [(910) 893-1208] during business hours for assistance.
If you know the name of the database you need to use, just go to the Databases page and click on the first letter of the database name (i.e. "L" for LexisNexis Academic). If you don't know which databases contain the information that you need you can click on the "Lists of databases grouped by subject areas" link. This will take you to a web page that shows the categories that the databases are grouped into. These categories are:
The Central Search allows us to search 50+ databases at the same time. This can be useful if you don't know which databases contain the information that you are looking for. Simply type in your search terms and let the Central Search process your request. After the search is done you can see which databases returned the most results.
You can sort your results in Central Search by date, title, author and source. You can also limit your results to full-text. Central Search does not allow you to limit your searches to scholarly sources (peer reviewed) at this time.
There is no one right way to search a database, it is a process. Before you start to search the databases you need to do some background research on your topic to determine if there are any important terms relevant to your search (names, specific events, countries, title of literary work, etc). Once you have these terms, use them in your search.
Look at the results your search is getting. Do they seem to be the type of articles that you are looking for? If they are, look at how the articles are described and use those terms in your search to find more articles. If they aren't the types of articles that you are looking for, you will need to use different search terms that you gathered during your background research.
If you are having problems finding any information, ask your local librarian (Campbell University, base librarian, or local librarian) for assistance.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at the reference department. If you are on campus, come by the reference desk at the Carrie Rich Memorial Library. If you can't come to the library you can email us at reference@campbell.edu or you can call us at (910)893-1467.