Traditional Research - Online/CD-ROM Resources

Currency

• generally more up-to-date than equivalent print sources
• may be updated as often as daily, weekly, or monthly, depending on the source

Ease of Use

• computerized
• varying quality of search interfaces, some more "friendly" than others
• often faster than using print sources

Authority

• established history - some sources around since the 1960's
• established publishers
• database quality control
• often a fee-based service

Search Terms

• "controlled vocabulary"
• thesaurus
• keyword or free-text or natural language searching

Search Strategy

• concept searching - breaking a search query down into component parts
• multiple points of entry
• boolean operators - AND, OR, NOT
• adjacency - WITH, NEAR
• more flexible than print resource searching

Type and Amount of Information Searched

• may be abstracts or full-text
• may focus on specific topics or have broad coverages
• databases may contain thousands to millions of items