Office workers tap into databases of budget information and business contacts. Businesses maintain databanks of credit information, while government agencies offer databanks of legal citations and technical data. Academic researchers reach into scholarly journal databases to build bibliographies for their papers and dissertations. The Union Institute Research Engine provides access to academic databases for use in scholarly projects. Citations and abstracts.
Most databases offer citations and abstracts of journal articles and books.
By searching for keywords that might appear in an article or book, a user can retrieve the citation, and often an abstract of, the journal article or book. A full-text database incorporates large files of text such as paragraphs from a journal article or chapters from a book. By searching for keywords that might appear in a text, a user can call forth the citation and abstract of the journal article or book. Today, most such databases do not offer the full text for free. Those with full text usually offer the search for citation and abstract for free, but charge for delivery of the full text of an article.