In a nutshell, a research database is an online collection of stuff. You'll find all sorts of things in a database, including ebooks, reports, newspaper articles, magazine articles, scholarly journal articles, images, videos, and audio clips.
Below are a few of the most popular databases among students.
If you're on-campus and connected the the Wake Tech wifi, you won't need to login.
If you're off-campus, you'll be prompted to enter a username and password. Your username is the FIRST part of your Wake Tech email address (so everything BEFORE the @my.waketech.edu). And your password is the same password you use for your Wake Tech email, Blackboard, and WebAdvisor.
NOTE: New Early College students DO NOT yet have a Wake Tech email address and cannot access the databases off-campus.
Summon is what we call the large search box in the center of the library's website. It searches ALL of the library's resources. Think of it as the "Library's Google."
After you get your list of results, you can narrow them down using the menu on the left side of the screen.