What Is a Database: Indexes & Fields

Definition

• Indexing consists of recording, making lists of, and "mapping" the location of specific information or types of information ("fields") that occur in one or more records.
• This speeds the location of specific information when searching the databases.
• Records may contain numerous fields.
• Large databases may have numerous indexes.
• When you search by title, author, publisher, etc., you are searching the fields of a database via specific indexes of the contents of those fields.

Example Fields:

• Title
• Author
• Publisher
• Date (including separate fields for each date component: month, day, year)
• Abstract
• All title words in every record, including their word order in the title.
• Subject headings

Example Indexes:

• All title words in every record, including their word order in the title.
• All occurrences of the name "Hemingway" in the author field.
• All occurrences of the word "Hemingway" in a subject field.
• All dates.
• All occurrences of the date "1997."
• All occurrences of an URL in the 856 MARC field.
• All individual words in the text, the number of times they occur in the text, and the position in the text of each word.
  • For example, all occurrence of the name "Hemingway" in the text of a record.

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