Last revised: August 2006
Citing a Library Subscription Database Using MLA
The page was developed to address the confusion that often arises when trying to cite subscription databases. By explaining some of the whys (that is, the concepts behind the conventions), I hope to clarify the more difficult hows (the mechanics). The citation style used is MLA.
MLA has different requirements for citing sources from library subscription databases (MLA calls these "services") than for sources from the open Web. For information on how to cite sources from the open Web, see the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 6th ed. (New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2003) or UM's guide Citing Sources Using the MLA Handbook.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FORMAT
The format for citing a work from a library subscription database in MLA style is as follows:
ELEMENTS: What are they, why are they necessary, and where can I find them?
Information about print publication: This is exactly the same as it would be if you had retrieved the article from a print source. See the sections on citing magazine, journal, and newspaper articles for information on the elements required for each type.
Database Name and Vendor
To understand what these are and why they need to be included, you need to know some basics about the structure of the industry.
The database industry is made up of producers and vendors. Sometimes they are the same, more often they are different. The Gale Directory of Databases provides the following definitions:
- Producers are the "organizations or individuals that are responsible for the gathering and organizing of the information used in the database"(xv)-i.e. the content. Examples of producers are journal or newspaper publishers and government agencies.
- Vendors (or "online services") are the "...organizations through which the databases...are accessible online."(xv)
Vendors lease the content from the producers, add various types of "value-added" services such as indexing and abstracting, search mechanisms and interfaces, controlled vocabulary, user customizations such as "my searches", etc., and lease them to subscribers (like libraries, law firms, consulting services, etc.)
Subscription Databases as Products
- They generally contain many different producers' content. For example, Academic Search Premier contains content from over 7000 different journals.
- Some of them are a "mixed bag" in relation to content coverage. Producers may license different types (or levels) of content to several different vendors. For example, Academic Search Premier contains the full text of articles articles from 4000 of its 7000 journals, but only the abstracts and basic bibliographic record information (title, author, date, publication, etc.) for the other 3000.
- They are "sold" to subscribers "as is"; we can't generally pick and choose which journals we want and which we don't want, and at what level of completeness. The content is bundled together into a product. This means that libraries may subscribe to a journal several times over because it is bundled into several products that we have purchased. For example, we subscribe to Psychology, Public Policy, and Law twice-once through PsychArticles (vendor: Ebsco) and once through Lexis Nexis Academic (vendor: Lexis Nexis). This is why the name of the database is required in the citation; a researcher could have potentially retrieved a particular article through either service:
- The content that is in a database is not always a faithful, perfect reproduction of the original print content. For example, below are two versions of the same article from different databases and vendors. What is shown is the same area of the document: one contains the image from the original print version, while the other indicates that there was an image in the original, but doesn't actually provide that image.
- Because libraries (and other subscribers) are leasing content from vendors who are leasing content from producers, we can lose access to content if the vendor's contract with the producer is severed. For example, the LA Times recently dropped its contract with Factiva and entered into an exclusive contract with a different vendor for its content. Now we only have rolling access to the last six months of the LA Times (through a different vendor who still has a license with them for recent content.)
| COMPARISON OF CONTENT
Reed, Maggie E., Linda L. Collingworth, and Louise F. Fitzgerald. "There's No Place Like Home: Sexual Harassment of Low Income Women in Housing." Psychology, Pubic Policy, and Law 11 (2003): 439-462. | |
|---|---|
| PsychArticles (Ebsco) Version |  |
| Lexis Nexis Academic (Lexis Nexis) Version |  |
In addition, mistakes occur which make versions different, especially in the HTML format. For example, the title of this article is supposed to be "Courting Disaster". Although this mistake is going to have limited scope of damage, a mistake in, say, the presentation of numerical data from a clinical study might cause any number of problems.
The Bottom Line
- Print and electronic versions are not necessarily identical, even if they are intended to be. Human error can occur in the data entry process (as we have seen above), vendors can simply fail to provide all content, or copyright restrictions can prevent a producer from leasing all the original content to a vendor. We can expect the disparity between the print and electronic to continue to increase as technology allows for faster and more universal access to videos, animation, and other non-print "value-added" features, so the importance of providing detailed comprehensive citations is not likely to diminish.
- Electronic versions are not always identical either, and it's not going to be easy to ascertain whether they are or aren't without doing some tedious, unnecessary research. This is why MLA and others want you to include all the information available about the origins of the source you used to access an article so that your reader will see the same version you did if she wants to.
How to Locate the Database Name and Vendor
Database Name: You'll usually know which database you're in because you'll have chosen it from the database list in Research Port:
However, if you move from one database to another using "find it", it may not be obvious, since the vendors tend to make their names very prominent. Remember that the "find it" window will identify the database name for you:
Vendor: The easiest way to identify the vendor is by clicking on the 
from the the "Find Database" list, which will open the "Database Details" window. This also contains update and URL information:
The more you utilize the library's databases, the more familiar you'll become with vendor names and the databases they provide. Here is a chart of some of the largest vendors and the databases they assemble:
| Vendor | Databases | Vendor | Databases |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ebsco | Academic Search Premier |
Lexis Nexis | Congressional Indexes Government Periodicals Index LexisNexis Academic LexisNexis Congressional |
| Cambridge Scientific Abstracts | NTIS
Toxline Ecology Abstracts Sociological Abstracts Conference Papers Index |
Proquest | ABI Inform
Criminal Justice Periodicals Early English Books Online Digital Dissertations GenderWatch |
Name of library or library system (subscriber)
Some databases are custom made for customers by vendors who then charge based upon the contents. This is fairly common in law firms whose information needs may be geographic or subject specific (for example, a law firm may specialize in property law in New York and may not require information on statutes and case law from the southwest.) MLA therefore requires the place of access in the citation as well. Here I have included only the city name since the state location is included in the name of the University.
Access Date
Databases change, as we have seen above. What you looked at one week may not be the same the next:
- Content can be corrected-i.e. typos
- Content can be lost-i.e. LA Times
- Content is added all the time, as new issues of journals come out. The "Database Details" window above shows the update schedule.
URL
Strictly speaking, MLA does not require URLs for library subscription databases. Currently, many URLs in subscription databases are only valid for the current session and therefore are useless at a later date. However, as persistent URLs become more common, this may change. The 6th edition says: "If you know the URL of the service's home page, give it, in angle brackets, immediately after the date of access, or you may simply end with the date of access."(229)
The home page for the vendor can be gleaned for the information in the "Database Details" window:
FAQs
Q: How do you know if you're in a subscription database vs. on the open Web?
A: The majority of databases in Research Port are subscription databases. Subscription databases can be identified by the presence of a vendor listing in the "Database Details" window, and, if you try to access their content from the open Web (i.e. using a search engine), you will be asked for a password. Subscriptions are arranged through the University of Maryland and therefore must be accessed through Research Port.
The non-subscription databases available through Research Port are included to aid you in your research. They are freely accessible to anyone on the open Web and are included because of their quality. These should be cited not as subscription databases (they are available to anyone) but as regular Web sites from the open Web. See the Web site section of UM's guide to Citing Resources using MLA.
Q: Does the in text reference change if my source is from a library subscription database?
A: No. The in text reference will be identical for a print and electronic version of a source. The purpose of an intext reference is to point the reader to the entry in the list of Works Cited where she will then see the full citation.
Q: How do I cite an area of an electronic document if there aren't any page numbers?
A: If the page has its own form of numbering, follow that. If it doesn't, don't make up your own. MLA addresses this on its Web site. If you use the PDF format, page numbers will be easy to locate; HTML versions often do not contain any internal numbering or identification schema.
Works Cited:Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 6th ed. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2003.
Nagel, Erin, ed. Gale Directory of Databases. 2 vols. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group, 2002.
