slide deck for class

1. Database Basics
September 29th 2015
DTC356-01

2. Why Do We Need
Databases?
• What kinds of problems are databases good at
solving?
• When do we need to move from simple physical
organization to using a database?
• What does Weinberger say?

3. Databases:
• Scale: Databases are good at storing large amounts of
information
• Organization: Databases work when there is authority
and structure
• Accuracy: Databases (when properly managed) return
high precision and recall
• **Within the limits of the database record structure

6. • TABLE: A collection of records that use the same field
structure
• RECORD: The complete collection of data for one item
in the database (row)
• FIELD: An item of data for a record (column)

7. • Unique
• Null
• Key (primary, foreign)

10. AND
(intersection)

12. OR
(union)

14. NOT
(relative compliment)

16. More on Boolean Logic & Venn Diagrams
http://lib.colostate.edu/howto/others/venn.html

17. How to See your Library Database

18. Questions to Ask Yourself
• What does a record in this database look like?
• What are the fields in this particular database?
• Can I find a primary key?
• How do I perform operations in this database?

19. The Information Search
Process
Carol Kuhlthau:
https://comminfo.rutgers.edu/~kuhlthau/
information_search_process.htm