XplanaZine

This articles takes a look at five major databases offered by many libraries: EBSCO, LexisNexis, FirstSearch, Newsbank, and Project MUSE. How can they be used effectively by students and faculty to improve research and writing skills, plus achieve learning objectives in online courses?

For those who are still hooked on googling for research papers, consider the fact that the primary determinants of “quality” in a google search are whether or not the search terms match website names, meta-tags or key words, and how many websites are linked back to the site under consideration.

Someone, somewhere thought that in an Internet democracy, people could “vote” with their links. Popularity, however, does not equate to quality. Nor does the number of link-backs equate with popularity. The entire process is just too easily subverted by the baroque, vaguely gothic structure of the average web-based yellow pages directory service. If you doubt this, simply go to google.com and type in your hometown name and the word “real estate.” Chances are, the top five google choices will be dot.com-birthed nationwide directory services rather than high-quality, up-to-date, original information.

Okay. We’ve bashed google. What’s wrong with dogpile (http://www.dogpile.com), or one of the other many meta-search engines? Nothing, except that they still will not take you to high-quality research sources, except in rare cases, where a constellation of individual journals have banded together and have made their resources available for free on the Internet.

What an academic digital resource database provides is a search philosophy similar to that of dogpile, which is to say that it is a meta-search engine. It will search thousands of journals, rather than forcing one to go to individual journals.

The unfortunate reality is that for the uninitiated, discovering the databases (let alone deciding which one is most appropriate) can be almost impossible. The typical university library portal is similar to that of the University of Houston. Once one has managed to click on the correct button on the university home page (the library button is usually either buried in other text or somewhere in a site map, or is tucked away in a corner of just off the bottom of the screen), the library portal appears. For a librarian, it’s a familiar and friendly place. For the student, it is a cryptic and cold interface that provides nary a clue about how or what you can actually retrieve, or which databases are best to use. Granted, one can find a list of subjects, and then one can click onto even more lists - but how far down the rabbit hole must you go to get a right-sized portion of cake, or data?

Why not make a list? The portal page could contain a list: “Databases: Top 10 List” or “Most-Favored by Undergraduates doing Term Papers.” The average library should take a hint from term-papers-on-file.com . Their interface invites searches, and it is a friendly e-space that invites the student to explore.

The design of the average university library portal page gives the unmistakable impression that libraries are for librarians. Their message is: Novices need not pass through this portal. The good stuff is hidden at least 5 clicks away.

We’re not even getting into the fact that these services are bandwidth hogs in the search, and even worse when one attempts to retrieve a multi-megabyte-sized pdf file. There are better ways, and some services do provide text-only or html-version files.

Okay. Let’s say that we have decided to make our library portal a friendlier place. We have put together a Top Ten list, with clear instructions for navigating the unfriendly first few pages:

• Enter your username and password
• Look for the list of letters in alphabetical order
• Click “E” for EBSCO and proceed
• Enter in your search term etc.

Once the students have made it this far, they are almost there. They will be entering a paradise of real references, peer-reviewed articles, bibliographically complete references, ways to locate information.

The following databases are some of the most useful, in general. Of course, they do not reflect all databases. Those will be reviewed in future articles.

EBSCO
EBSCO Information Services

Many libraries and businesses subscribe to EBSCO services, and with good reason. They are complete, easy-to-use, and one can retrieve full-text versions. Here is EBSCO’s self-appraisal, from their website:

“EBSCO Information Services is a worldwide leader in providing information access and management solutions through print and electronic journal subscription services, research database development and production, online access to more than 100 databases and thousands of e-journals, and e-commerce book procurement. 2004 marks EBSCO’s 60th year of serving the library and business communities.”

How are EBSCO-retrieved articles presented?

• In all cases, the full citation is available.
• In some cases, the full text version is available only for subscribers of a specific journal, or by paying a retrieval fee. In that case, the user obtains a reference only.
• In some cases, there is a link to a full-text version in html
• Link to pdf (warning — relatively brief articles can be as much as 3 megabytes in size)

OCLC — Online Computer Library Center
FirstSearch, ArticleSearch, etc.- http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/default.htm

I have found the OCLC to be invaluable in finding the information I need on a specific book, title, author, or subject. One unique aspect of OCLC is the fact that it provides information from the catalogues of member libraries, making it possible to locate a book. Here is information from the website:

“Founded in 1967, OCLC Online Computer Library Center is a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing information costs. More than 50,000 libraries in 84 countries and territories around the world use OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend and preserve library materials.”

About FirstSearch, OCLC has this to say:

“FirstSearch offers seamless electronic access to dozens of databases and more than 10 million full-text and full-image articles, which offfer a broad range of databases and full text collections or a select list that fits the needs of your users.”

Does this search live up to its hype? I have found that it does, but only if the library has a robust interlibrary loan system, and a cooperative agreement with other libraries that will either loan the entire book or send a text version to the borrower, at a reasonable cost. FirstSearch is indispensable for graduate students, doctoral candidates engaged in dissertation research, post-doctoral fellows, and faculty researchers.

Needless to say, FirstSearch does not supplant or replace special collections of archives, manuscripts, first editions, and other documents used in conducting original research. Nevertheless, it is absolutely vital in locating specialized research, articles, and monographs that were often printed with total print runs of less than 500 copies.

LexisNexis Databases
LexisNexis

For legal and government documents, LexisNexis is the recognized standard. What is not often recognized is that LexisNexis also provides access to important worldwide business periodicals, which provide vital economic and legal information. In many cases, there simply is no better source for worldwide and regional financial, legal, and governmental information. The search engine is easy to use, and one can have the full text e-mailed to one’s personal e-mail address, which saves considerably on download time. LexisNexis makes the entire Congressional Record available, which includes testimony in investigative hearings in committees and subcommittees. There may be more detail than one wants or needs when one retrieves the full text, but LexisNexis is an excellent time-saver, particularly in conjunction with the “Find (on this page)” feature of Internet Explorer.

Here is how LexisNexis describes its services:

LexisNexis® provides authoritative legal, news, public records and business information; including tax and regulatory publications in online, print or CD-ROM formats.

Newsbank Periodicals Archive
Newsbank, Inc.

I have to say that Newsbank is one of my favorite articles database, even though there does tend to be a bit of redundancy when more than one newspaper runs an Associated Press wire story, or when multiple papers pick up a single story. It is an outstanding resource, particularly for undergraduate students who need to find case studies or examples for their essays on current problems or controversies.

Newsbank describes itself in this way:

“The largest and fastest growing newspaper resource in existence, featuring 110 million articles from more than 500 U.S. newspapers, all accessible via an intuitive, map-based interface. The perfect resource for researching or tracking people, issues and events.”

Characteristics include:

• Comprised of American newspapers: “the ultimate newspaper archive.” As opposed to LexisNexis, which features international periodicals, Newsbank relies heavily on American newspapers. It may be difficult to see more than one side of an issue in certain highly-charged areas.
• Retrieves full text
• Can email or save
• Worldwide database — unfortunately some repetitions.

Project MUSE
Project MUSE: Scholarly Journals Online.
Enlightened libraries (see my bias!) subscribe to Project MUSE, a major database created by the Johns Hopkins libraries. In a time when the humanities are, delicately speaking, under siege, Project MUSE is a beacon of hope. The journals covered are ideal for undergraduate, graduate, and faculty researchers. The fact that full text is available is a giant benefit.

Here is how they describe themselves:

“Currently, Project MUSE® offers nearly 250 quality journal titles from 40 scholarly publishers. As one of the academic community’s primary electronic journals resources, Project MUSE covers the fields of literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, economics, and many others. Project MUSE is setting the standard for scholarly electronic journals in the humanities and social sciences. At this time, Project MUSE subscriptions are available only to institutions.”

“Quality journals” refers to the fact that the journals are refereed, and they conform to the standards set by the governing bodies in each field of inquiry. The student who researches a topic in the Project MUSE ® database will find a very different set of articles than if she contents herself with a google or dogpile search. This is not to say that one should abandon google, dogpile, or any of the other web-based search engines. The best approach would be to ask students to do both, and to compare the results. It would help them immensely as they learn to distinguish valid sources and citations from questionable ones. It also helps them see the time-saving aspects of researching within a database search engine rather than within the archives of a single online periodical.