Library Indexes/Full-text databases VERSUS  Google

Similarities

• Both are indexes to content
• Both can be searched using Boolean logic

Differences

• Content:  Indexes/Databases are generally restricted to certain types of materials - journals, newspapers, books, encyclopedia articles
• Size - Google uses spiders to gather billions of web pages into a searchable index.  Library databases have journal content submitted into a searchable index (maybe a few million)
• Scope - Google takes in everything it can get it's hands on - Library databases concentrate on one thing - journals for example or newspapers.
• Google gives little information about the information it gives - no author, title, date of publishing, publisher, subject headings, pagination
• Cost - Library's pay for databases - Google is free (though the content it finds may not be free)