LIS 623 Final Project- Database Selection Project November 28, 2011

Academic Search Complete - Yes This is a good interdisciplinary database, which would probably be used by the majority of student users due to its general overview of subjects. Academic Search Completes website (http://www.ebscohost.com/academic/academic-search-complete) promotes it as, [f]eaturing thousands of full-text journals, this scholarly collection offers unmatched coverage of information spanning a broad range of important areas" And it is hosted by Ebsco. ACLS Humanities Ebooks - Yes ACLS Humanities Ebooks supplies database users with a large number of ebooks in the scope of the humanities. The database can be searched in the following ways, Search options include simple, Boolean, proximity and bibliographic; plus full-text, author, title, subject, publisher or special series. Search histories are included. Users may browse by title, author or subject. (http://www.humanitiesebook.org/HEB_Brochure.pdf) While this database does not directly support the mission of JWU and the degree programs offered by the Charlotte campus to the degree that some other databases do, we believe that for the price the number of resources offered is a good investment for the campus. Business & Company Resource Center (BCRC) - Yes For business students, or students doing research with a financial focus, this is an excellent database. A search box is available right away and starts with a description of the companys history and also gives a variety of articles divided by subject (for example: legal, people, sales & marketing, and financial data). Business Source Premier - Yes With many management courses of study offered at JWU, Business Source Premier fits naturally into the scope of library databases. Its interface is familiar as it is hosted by Ebsco, and has a comprehensive database of pertinent information. CountryWatch - Yes CountryWatch is a database of reports on many areas, such as: economic or social factors and private or public organizations. JWUs other campuses include some majors in International Business and International Hotel & Business Management but the Charlotte campus does not. However there are still business, retail marketing and event planning majors who might find this database useful and the JWU Library at Charlotte does need to include this one in order to support its students. Culinary Arts Collection - Yes Considering the mission of the university and how Johnson & Wales academic curriculum is concentrated in the area of the culinary arts and hospitality services, it is vital to provide students with access to this database. This database allows users to utilize Boolean searching, truncation and other similar search strategies. The user can do one of the following searches: basic, subject

guide, publication, or advanced. (http://www.jwu.edu/content.aspx?id=31378) Emerald Management - Yes Emerald Group Publishing supports library users with scholarly articles of a top notch grade. The articles included in this database are best used for academic research and students will benefit from the easily interpreted information architecture. On the search results page, results are separated by different formats (journals, books, case studies, etc.). This allows for an easy scan of the overall breath of information available on your search terms. One section highlighted on the results page is site pages which are links to internal webpages. These pages are extremely informative and supply the user with a background context. Epicurious - Yes Epicurious (http://www.epicurious.com) is a website that partners with popular culinary magazines (bon apptit and Gourmet magazines) to collect recipes and articles. An interesting section of their website is the page titled 80 Global Dishes and has videos to show the dishes being prepared. Films on Demand - Yes Films on Demand certainly must be included in any database selection process and this is because of the sheer volume of quality videos cataloged in this one database. Among the ways in which students will be able to use the videos are as a supplement their class presentations and projects with related videos. Food Safety Streaming Videos Food Safety Streaming Videos (http://www.fsis.usda.gov/news/Food_Safety_Videos/index.asp) is a wonderful complement to the database Films on Demand with a culinary framework. It is a part of the USDAs website and also contains podcasts. The search bar on the left allows for a general search, an index, or browsing by subject or audience. Gale Biography In Context - Yes The interface is incredibly easy to use and navigate, while the biographies provided are thorough, giving access to NY Times articles as well as from other Gale publications such as Contemporary Authors. It provides a selection of different formats to present the user with biographies, videos, magazine articles, websites, images and much more. This database covers people in every area- authors, popular culture figures, political, sports and others. It also is not limited to United States biographies as well, nor is it limited to contemporary public figures. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context - No Pro/con essays are what make up the majority of content in Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. And while there are podcasts, biographies and much more, it would be redundant to include in this database in this particular collection. The features lauded by Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context can be located and accessed through other databases, such as Gale Biography In Context or Films on Demand. Gale Science In Context - No Gale Science In Context is a database providing science articles from popular magazines,

however the audience for these articles consists of children from grades K-6 and then also for high school. This would not be an appropriate database for university students at Johnson & Wales. Google Scholar - Yes Armed with the familiar search engine interface, Google Scholar is a good direction to point student users in though cautionary words might need to be added. For those incoming freshmen who are perhaps inexperienced performing academic research, it might be necessary to inform them of just how different Google Scholar is from doing a regular search through a search engine. Google Scholar provides inclusion criteria for librarians interested in referring their students to it. Global Road Warrior - Yes This database should be included because it has a lot of useful information for the price. It would be most useful for hospitality students who may have to deal with visitors or business contacts from other countries and therefore need to be aware of what other countries consider correct etiquette. Some of the information contained in GRW is freely available through such resources as the CIA World Fact Book or the Department of States Background Notes. However, neither of those two resources have anywhere near the depth of information offered by GRW. Also, the simple interface makes it easy for students to quickly get the information that they need. In all, for the relatively low price point, JWU-Charlotte derives sufficient benefit from GRW to justify its inclusion. That being said, our group does not feel that it is by any means an essential database. Should the price increase significantly, or should money need to shift for more beneficial resources, this one could be cut without significant damage. GREENR - No Thought it looks like a well-designed and interesting database, we do not think that we need to include this resource. It does not appear to advance the mission of the university considerably. It looks as though it would only be useful for students involved in environmental science programs or courses. It might prove useful for students doing specific projects on topics that they had selected related to environmental sciences, but research demand seems as though it would be small. Health & Wellness Resource Center - No With the increased focus on health and health conscious living today, restaurants and their chefs and menu planners need to keep up with current health trends and research. As such, even though JWU-Charlotte doesnt have any specific degree programs in a health sciences field, HWRC could be very useful for students and worth keeping, despite its rather hefty price tag. That being said, however, some of the information it contains is available online for free through such sites as Medline and PubMed. Of course, neither of those sites will have anywhere near the amount of information available through HWRC. Hospitality & Tourism Complete (HTC) - Yes Our group would choose to include this database for several reasons. For one thing, as JWUCharlotte has an entire college dedicated to hospitality, there is a clear need for the library to

support students in various hospitality and culinary programs. EBSCOS HTC clearly helps the library do that. Another deciding factor would be that it seems to be a fairly broad database that in turn, would be useful to students not only in the Hospitality College, but also in the Culinary Arts program. Though it appears as if there might be some overlap with Gales Hospitality, Tourism, and Leisure Collection (HTLC), in evaluating both, we could not find that HTLC specifically supported Culinary Arts, so I would recommend purchasing this database. Hospitality, Tourism & Leisure Collection (HTLC) - Yes Despite the fact that it does have some overlap with EBSCOs Hospitality and Tourism Complete (HTC), I would recommend keeping HTLC as well as HTC. Not only is HTLC somewhat less expensive than is HTC, but it also looks as though it might be larger. Additionally, as Hospitality programs are an important focus of JWU Charlotte (Hospitality programs make up nearly half of JWU-Charlottes bachelors programs), the number of students needing Hospitality resources means that maintaining access to both databases, despite some overlap, would be a worthy investment of university money. IBISWorld - Yes Given that JWU-Charlotte has a large number of business programs, the library and its students need quality business resources. JWU already has a number of good sources, such as Business and Company Resource Center (BCRC) and Business Source Premier (BSP). Despite the hefty price tag, I think that IBIS provides a service that is sufficiently unique to include it in JWUCharlottes array of resources. Neither BCRC nor BSP have quite the detail of information for the industry profiles that IBIS has. LexisNexis Academic - Yes JWU-Charlotte does not have anything that can offer the service that Lexis does, and neither is there an alternative free resource that has anywhere near the depth of information. A lot of Lexiss business information is, of course, duplicated in the other business databases. And much, if not all, of the legal information is available somewhere online for free. The problem with trying to use a free source for the legal information is the sheer number (not to mention frequent lack of usability) of places where one would have to go. Many business majors would likely find Lexiss news function to be invaluable, as well. Therefore, the major reasoning behind choosing to purchase this database would be because LexisNexis has compiled and created a simple interface for the user. Literature Resource Center (LRC) - Yes While JWU specializes in careers and trade, and less heavily on the academic, JWU does require a fair amount of general education course work. This includes English classes that require higher literary criticism. While both JSTOR and Academic Search Complete (ASC) provide quite a large variety of literary criticism, much of this may be above the heads of beginning students. LRC, on the other hand has not only advanced resources, but also a lot of very good introductory level information. For the price point, LRC provides more than enough useable information to justify its inclusion in JWU-Charlottes database list. Lynda.com Online Training Library - Yes Lynda.com is a source for online tutorials available in seeming every subject area. The video

tutorials in this database are accessible on many different devices such as personal computers, smartphones and tablets. The database development team took multiple operating systems into account. For instance, a tutorial on Adobe Dreamweaver showed not only a Windows 7 PC running Internet Explorer 9 and a Mac Running OSX Snow Leopard with Safari 4 or 5, but a Windows XP PC with IE8. Another tutorial also showed both an android phone and iPad. Also, there seem to be a very great number of tutorials. Two big concerns about this product though are the price and the restriction on the number of simultaneous users, however the value that Lynda.com adds to our groups overall selection of databases is immeasurable. MRI+ Reporter - Yes GfK Mediamark does not provide a lot of information about this database and this in turn makes evaluation difficult. However, upon review of various YouTube demonstrations and How-To PDFs located through several colleges and universities, it looks as though this could be a tremendously useful tool for anyone involved in market research or anyone in an academic program studying market research. When reviewing JWU-Charlottes databases, there does not seem to be a large quantity that deal with consumer response to products and advertising, the way that MRI+ Reporter appears to. SAGE Premier 2010 - Yes While Sage Premier does carry a large price tag, it is a good multidisciplinary database to include. JWU-Charlotte does not have a lot of multidisciplinary resources, or resources that are particularly suited to general academics, as opposed to many of the applied, career focused databases. While Academic Search Premier is an excellent resource, it needs to be supplemented with other choices as well. In all, Sage Premier provides sufficient value to JWU-Charlotte to justify the investment. ScholarsArchive @JWU-Dissertation & Theses Collection This database provides collection of dissertation and theses from Johnson and Wales University. Information can be searched by year. It provides links to other campuses. Since it is directly linked to the academic history of the university, students can access it to learn more about the scholarship conducted at their school.

SPORTDiscus with Full Text - No This database contains the largest collection of sports and sports medicine journals. It has full text articles of 550 journals that date back to 1985. This database would be more suitable for universities with a stronger emphasis in athletics and medical and physical education based studies. Stylesight - Yes The team behind this database prides itself as providing information and resources that goes beyond regurgitated news in the fashion industry. Stylesight has a long list of clientele ranging from low and high designers and retailers; such as Wal-mart, Avon, Coach, and Prada. This site is innovative in its approach as providing web tools, current news and trends, marketing expertise, digital imagery, and its global perspective of fashion. Users will find it highly useful for researching purposes in the fashion industry on an international level.

Wall Street Journal - Yes The Wall Street Journal is one of the worlds oldest reputable news sources. It is widely known for its political news and financial reporting. It also has other subject matter that focuses on the arts, popular culture, sports, people and editorials. The information is comprehensive and detailed while its superior indexing allows researchers access to full text articles of various subject matter. Researchers should find it easily accessible as it is a Proquest interface. Berg Fashion Library - Yes Researchers can browse through thousands of images in the internationally renowned Costume Institutes collection. It contains information about the history of fashion throughout the world. Users are able to get a global perspective of fashion and be exposed to various techniques and elements of the fashion industry. Credo Reference - No Credo Reference is a sophisticated and innovative way of researching. The database has concept maps that allow the researcher to explore other areas of their search and to pinpoint information that will help to further develop their research. Putting the cursor on the nodules/points allows the researcher to find out instant information source before actually accessing the full content. Researching a general subject or topic allow the researcher to pull from over 70 publishers in major subjects and contains information from various encyclopedias and dictionaries; it covers a multiple range of subjects ranging from the arts to sciences. It contains thousands of charts, diagrams, graphs, images, etc. EBRARY Academic Complete EBRARY Academic Complete contains 459,214 documents and has added 4,686 within the last 30 days. It contains information from over 76 publishers and is constantly updating its information. Education Research Complete - No It contains various topics that deal with early childhood education and higher education. It is source for researching specialty topics in education. Education Research Complete also provides information about health education. This database will not help to support the educational curriculum of Johnson and Wales University. ProQuest Nat. Sci.: Biological Science Collection - No This collection offers a variety of subject matter in the field of biological sciences. It has over 15 million articles that also features abstracts and citations. It would be more suitable for an academic institution that focuses on scientific studies and research. PsycARTICLES - No This database has over 150,000 articles from almost 80 journals. Articles can found all the way back to 1894. This database supports the studies of students majoring in psychology counseling.