Database Searching: The Process of a Search

Handling the Information Request

• Of course, the first step in your decision is dependent upon your interaction with the person needing or wanting information (the Reference Interview):
  • Listen
  • Ask non-leading questions to be target the person's information need. (This could be of librarians as well as library patrons.)
  • Determine:
    • What is the nature of the information need?
    • How quickly is the information needed?
    • In what form is it needed?
• Note: A "Reference Interview" can occur when dealing with coworkers and not just when you are acting as a Search Intermediary on the Reference Desk

Handling the Information Request

Select the appropriate databases to search

• This is simple when you are searching a local OPAC, a book distributor's datab ase, or a bibliographic utility; but much more difficult when you are searching a database utility (such as Dialog) providing multiple databases.
• Criteria for selecting a database may include:
  • What kind of online information services do you have available to you?
  • Which information services offer the best selection of databases?
    • Which database vendor or OPAC would have the desired information? (Kind and timeliness are both important)
    • This could also be asked as, What specific databases or OPACs are available?
  • What formats do the databases support? (citation, full-text, abstract, graphics, statistics or other numerical data)
  • Which databases or OPACs provide the best content quality?
  • Which offer the most sophisticated searching capabilities?
  • Which offer the easiest searching capabilities?
  • What are the delivery options? (online download, E-mail, fax, mail, express services)
  • When are the services available?
  • Which offer the best support, best help services?
  • Are there budgetary constraints that restrain your information service choice?
  • Which information services offer the most cost-effective pricing?

Developing the search strategy, including:

• Selecting the Indexes (fields) to be searched on or else selecting to search "Free Text", which means searching on ALL of the text in Records
• Selecting the specific terms to be searched on in those Indexes
• Selecting how they will be entered and organized in the query.

Conducting the Search

• Logging on
• Executing the search
• Displaying the intermediate results of the search(es)
• Refine the search by adding new terms or recombining search terms for more useful results.
• Displaying the selected records
• Have the Records Delivered
  • Downloading
  • E-mail
  • Fax

Search Analysis

• Did you get what you needed?
• Was the search strategy:
  • Effective
  • Cheap or expensive
  • Could you do the same search better the next time?
  • Would you use the same databases?