We live in a time in which there is more information available to people than ever before. For example, there are 9,600 journals published in the United States every year. Each day there are 1,000 books published world wide. These numbers represent only a fraction of the growing amount of published information available today.
Databases are one of the tools that libraries use to keep track of published information.
Electronic databases are capable of storing, organizing, and retrieving information fast and efficiently. Many databases store information pertaining to one subject. For example, PsychInfo is a database which stores information about literature in psychology and related fields. However, Academic Search FullTEXT Elite is a database that stores information about many different subjects and disciplines. A database is a collection of records, stored on a computer, with information about different items.