A full-text database (or complete-text database) is a database that contains the full text of books, dissertations, journals, magazines, newspapers or other textual documents.[1] It differs from bibliographic databases, which typically contain only bibliographic metadata and sometimes abstracts, and from other non-bibliographic databases such as directories and numeric databases.[2][3]
One of the earliest systems of this type was IBM STAIRS, introduced in 1973.[4]
Full-text databases became more widespread around 1990, when advances in computer storage and processing made large-scale text storage and retrieval more practical. Two main categories are often distinguished: extensions of traditional bibliographic database systems into full-text systems (for example, on hosts such as BRS, Dialog, LexisNexis, and Westlaw) and Internet-based full-text systems, which are typically documented using search engines or structured document formats such as XML.
