That has implications in terms of both space allocation and noise. Watch people as they approach the web or any database, and you will realize that many of them do NOT want to read text, and do NOT want to scroll down the screen. All they want to do is type what they want in a box and get it. That has obvious implications for the way we design search interfaces. Above all, it means we are going to want to put a searchbox in plain site and make the whole site keyword searchable.
Most people have no conceptual grasp of the difference between databases and the internet.
An interface that offers a whole cluster of icons to access different services is likely to confuse users who have no idea what the differences between them are. Many users don't realize that when they don't find something on their subject, it's because they're doing a subject heading search with a word that is not a descriptor. We can increase people's chances of finding things if we make the search screens default to keyword searches. These are things I have observed with our patrons, who are mostly college students. Your own users may behave differently.