Using Databases in Social Studies

Archive vs. Database

Finding Databases Online

Creating Databases

 

 

Finding Databases Online
Finding databases related to social studies can be difficult, even though there are many of them in existence today. Part of the reason for that is that historical databases can exist in different forms, and can be posted online in different ways. For that reason, the discerning social studies teacher needs to do a few different searches online to find what it is you are looking for.

Digital Databases of Primary Sources
Finding digital databases which contain textual or graphic sources is one of the easier database searches to do. You probably ran into a few of them when you did your search for digital archives. Boolean searches can work for this as well, and many primary source databases can be found through major libraries (like the British Library or the Library of Congress).

Some examples of Social Studies Databases include:
A Century of Lawmaking
The Avalon Project at Yale Law School
CIA World Fact Book

Spreadsheets
Spreadsheets, such as those created on MS Excel, can also be a form of database. As such, these databases can be searched for through the advanced search functions of many Boolean search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Altavista. Just click on “Advanced Search” on the fisrt page of the search engine, and on the Advanced Search Page change the file format to Microsoft Excel (.xls).