A
navigational database is a type of
database in which
records or
objects are found primarily by following references from other objects. They were a common type of database in the era when data was stored on
magnetic tape; the navigational references told the computer where the next record on the tape was stored, allowing fast-forwarding (and in some cases, reversing) through the records without having to read every record along the way to see if it matched a given criterion.