A Sample Database Record
•Personal author: Garreau, Joel.
•Title: The nine nations of North America / Joel Garreau.
•Publication info: Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1981.
•ISBN: 0395291240 : $12.95
•Physical description: xvii, 427 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
•General note: Includes index.
•Bibliography note: Bibliography: p. [397]-413.
Here’s an example from the online catalog of a library.  The online catalog is an example of a database.  The record is an example of the familiar bibliographic record.  It simply describes a book.  The fields should also be familiar: author, title, publisher, etc.  The book happens to be one of my favorites.  It was my textbook for a course in US and Canadian geography.  The book suggested that North America could be split into nine different nations that would make more sense than the three that we currently have.  He explains why he picks the borders that he does.  One memorable one was a diagonal line from northwest Connecticut to southeast Connecticut.  People to the north and east of this line have a very strong tendency to be Boston Red Sox fans and people to the south and west of the line tend to be New York Yankees fans.  Sorry Mets fans … I don’t think he paid them much notice!