Bibliographic databases generally include information about printed material such as books, articles, and maps. They consist of records with basic descriptive information about the items such as author, title, publisher, date, publication title, etc.

Bibliographic databases may not contain the items themselves, but will give you the information you need to find the item. They provide citations (a listing of information about the item), and sometimes include abstracts (summaries) or descriptions of the items.

Here is an example of a record from a bibliographic database - in this case the online catalog:

Here is an example from another bibliographic database, a periodical index called Readers Guide Abstracts.

To find the complete article you would need the information in the SOURCE field (here shown highlighted).