Data bank
A data bank is
- like a database - a collection of information organized so that specific facts can be retrieved as
needed. The term is often used about "factual" databases a opposed to
bibliographical databases.
Brittain (1989, pp. 99-100) speaks about a data bank movement in the
social sciences (associated with the establishing of
data archives):
"The databank movement in the social sciences has perpetuated the mistaken belief that mountains of data are worthwhile, and that if enough is collected, analysed, and stored, benefits will result and the social sciences will progress. This belief is mistaken: it is characteristic of alchemists, or mystics, rather than scientists."
Sometimes is the term data bank used synonymously with database or with database host (cf., on-line databases).
Literature:
Kirchner, W. P.
(1980). Data-bases and data-banks: 1980 Meeting of Gesellschaft für
Bibliothekswesen und Dokumentation des Landesbaues in Würzburg. Nachrichten
für Dokumentation, 31(4-5), 201-202. (In German).
Thygesen, L. (1988). Statistiske databanker. IN: Informationssøgning og dokumentation inden for humaniora og samfundsvidenskab. Rapport fra et seminar 14.-16.oktober på Københavns Universitet. Kulturfremstødet Danmark-Frankrig 1987-1988. Redigeret af Barbara Melchior. København: Det kongelige Bibliotek. (Pp. 67-71).
Birger Hjørland
Last edited: 15-05-2006