What does research actually mean?
Research aims to gather existing knowledge on a specific topic and integrate it into your own research process. A thorough search allows you to close your own knowledge gaps, identify research gaps, and place your work within the context of existing studies.
The definition of your research question in the context of research involves:
- a structured collection of search terms
- and their meaningful combination into search queries.
Next, the goal is to find and gain access to the required information in the form of scientific literature.
A central starting point for this is the library: It provides access to over 200,000 printed books, more than 400,000 e-media resources, and several million academic articles.
What is the OPAC?
The first point of contact in any research process is the library catalogue (OPAC). It contains the library’s entire collection at the title level. This means it provides information about which books, e-books, journals, and newspapers are available through the library.
Why use academic databases?
In the next step, academic databases come into play. They enable targeted searches for individual articles from scientific journals.
An overview of the most relevant databases for each faculty is available on the library website.
The databases differ topically – ranging from highly specialised subject databases to interdisciplinary databases covering a wide range of topics.
In addition, they differ in terms of availability of the literature they index: So-called full-text databases provide the entire text for each entry, whereas bibliographic databases only refer to the existence of the article.
Thanks to the internet, it is usually possible to check availability with just a few clicks and, if necessary, place an interlibrary loan request.
Frequently asked questions
What is meant by research?
Research is a fundamental part of academic work. It serves to collect existing knowledge on a topic and integrate it into your own research process.
What are full texts?
Databases differ in terms of the availability of the literature they index: So-called full-text databases provide the corresponding text online for each entry, whereas bibliographic databases only refer to the existence of the article.
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This article was published in September 2025 and last updated in December 2024.