Is there a difference between what is found in library databases and the Internet? The answer is
yes!

The library staff decides which databases to purchase by examining the college curriculum
and deciding which databases will be helpful to our students. Masterfile Premier, Info-trac One
File, Newspaper Source and Health Source are just some examples of library databases. The
material in databases comes from reputable publishers and has been checked for accuracy and
reliability. The opposite is true of the "open or free Internet." Anyone with the knowledge of
web page design can mount materials on the Internet. You have to be careful when you decide to
use the Internet for researching a topic. Free web sites do not include all information for
researching topics. They will not give you access to older issues of magazines, journals and
newspapers. Searching the free Internet can give you tens of thousands of sites, many of which
are of questionable quality. There is no way to determine at first glance if Internet sites are
reliable or not. 

Library databases are web based, meaning that information is searched through a
web interface. If your instructor limits what they want you to find from the Internet they are not
referring to the content of library databases. The full text articles in journal and newspaper
databases are exactly the same as they would be found in the actual paper issue including
illustrations, graphs and charts. For example, an article from Time magazine you find in
Masterfile Premier is exactly the same as if you used the paper issue of Time. In some instances,
you may find today's newspaper on a website. Older issues of newspapers on the web often have
a charge associated with them. In some instances, you may find a website for a magazine, such
as Time or Newsweek. Accessing these articles usually involves a fee.