The universe of online databases; reality and model(s)

Abstract

The primary purposes of this article is to describe the range of currently available online databases. This will be done by analysing the modelling effect during database construction, that is by looking at the universes of discourse, the targets of modelling and the resulting data structures. As tools for mod elling, the following information types are differentiated: prop erty space, formatted fields, texts, formal languages (e.g., in chemistry) and mathematical models (in physics). Finally, some remarks are made concerning the online database of tomorrow which should be 'integrated' (integrating different information types) and ' knowledge-based' (with meta-knowledge about in formation types, the universe of discourse and the database).