I often find myself procrastinating when it comes to research projects mainly because of the use of the word database found in the criteria. Whenever I see this word I tend to cringe. The internet can be a scary research tool to use correctly - at least it is for me. However, after going through the assigned readings for this week I found out that the word database doesn't necessarily mean internet, but also includes such tools as phone books, dictionaries, catalogs, etc.
"A database is any collection of data that can be retrieved using organized search procedures" (BADKE, 2008, pg 33)
For some reason, knowing this bit of information seems to make this whole "database research" much more simple than what I put it out to be. Keeping in mind that the internet is probably the most accessible search tool in our day and age, I now understand not to use words like "and" and "or" when searching for keywords online. I never knew this before - but it definitely makes sense. If we search "Vancouver and the Olympics" we will come up with results about both the city of Vancouver and the Olympics. Yes, in some cases this may be helpful, but if you want to know something more specific about either Vancouver or the Olympics you may want to use different wording ("Vancouver 2010 Olympics", etc).
I can now say that searching on the internet no longer frightens me. Perhaps I'll try it more often since I know a bit more about it.
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