Bibliographic databases provide an overview of publications in a particular discipline, about a particular subject or publications by a particular author (books, book chapters, journal articles, reviews etc.) regardless of the location of the publications. In this respect a database differs from a library catalogue. You should use bibliographic databases if, for example, you want to know all the publications on a particular subject. Bibliographic databases have an extensive search interface and can be searched online. They can be accessed through the Library portal.
Bibliographic databases contain bibliographic references to books, articles etc. They refer to the title, the author, in which journal the article has been published, in which year, volume, issue etc. Most bibliographic databases also contain a link to the full-text of the article, or in the case of an eBook, a link to the content of the eBook. This link is only shown if the library actually has a license for the eBook or eJournal. Sometimes the databases themselves contain the full-text of scholarly publications (journal articles). In that case you have direct access the text.
Many bibliographic databases relate to a specific discipline (or part of it). Others cover all or several disciplines. The advantage of searching in a bibliographic database is that it enables you to search thoroughly and precisely in a specific discipline or on a specific subject. They offer more extensive search options and generally contain help tools such as a list of keywords geared to the specific discipline or subject or a thesaurus, which simplifies finding relevant publications.
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The disadvantage is that you, as a LIT student, do not necessarily have access to the publications you find in these databases. If this is the case you could try using ILL (Interlibrary Loan).
Bibliographic databases: these only contain bibliographic references, sometimes with an abstract or a short description of the contents. Some databases provide a link to the full text of the publication in other databases (e.g. in e-journals).
Full-text databases: these contain not only the bibliographic reference but also the full text of the publication, which in many cases is fully searchable.
Citation databases: these contain not only the bibliographic reference but also a link to the citations (= other publications that mention the publication).
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