This book is intended to help librarians and others to produce databases of better value and quality, especially if they have had little previous experience in database construction. Drawing upon almost 40 years of experience in the field of information retrieval, this book emphasizes basic principles and approaches rather than in-depth and comprehensive evaluations of particular products. The book is divided into two main parts. The first part, "Content and Organization of the Database", includes chapters on defining database types and creators; database content; and quality and usability factors. Chapters in the second part, "Software Issues", focus on types of database software; record and database structuring and data entry; index creation; index browsing; searching; sorting; display, print, and download functions; and interface considerations. Appendices include a list of URLs for software products and import and export formats of bibliographic records. Sixty-one figures accompany the text. (Contains an index.) (AEF)