Best Reference 2002: Databases/Discs

The content of electronic products continues to improve in quality. Producers appear to be listening and acting on the feedback from users and reviewers, and the indication is that economic trends will make them perk up their ears to us even more. Although the popularity of CD-ROMs continues to shrink, certainly when compared with the expediency of online databases, the CD-ROM market is still awash with products with superior capabilities. Thus, this year's list of the best includes some niche-target disc files that might otherwise be overwhelmed by the web megafile giants. Annotations derive from original LJ Database&Disc Reviews by various contributors.

WEB Academic Search Premier EBSCO Publishing. Price negotiated by site. www.epnet.com
This uncomplicated database provides full text (and in some cases full images) for nearly 3300 scholarly publications in science, social sciences, and arts and humanities. Much of the information provided here is not easily found elsewhere in full text. Also, the search screens make sense: alter a few colors and you could practically be in Google. (LJ 5/1/02)

WEB Black Drama Alexander Street Pr. Pricing options include one-time purchase with perpetual access or annual subscription. www.alexanderstreet.com
The latest in Alexander Street's arsenal of full-text, value-added products, Black Drama currently includes 207 plays by 64 playwrights. Quarterly updates through the winter of 2003 will complete the database, at which point it will contain the full text of 1200 plays, written between 1850 and the present, by playwrights from North America, Africa, and the Caribbean. Many of the plays are rare or out of print, and over 400 have never been published. (LJ 6/1/02)

WEB Current Biography Illustrated H.W. Wilson. Price negotiated by site. www.hwwilson.com
This staple of school, academic, and public libraries is now a web-based database of more than 15,000 full-text biographies, over 9400 obituaries, and more than 19,500 images from the volumes of the print source, from 1940 to the present. Its natural-language searching gives librarians a valuable tool to respond to incomplete research questions (i.e., when the user can remember details except the actual name). H.W. Wilson deserves special praise for having been immediately responsive to recent user feedback. (LJ 3/1/03)

WEB Early Encounters in North America: People, Cultures and the Environment Alexander Street Pr. Price negotiated by site. www.alexanderstreet.com
This elegantly designed and thorough database contains over 10,000 pages of primary source material from 92 authors documenting the relationships among peoples and with the environment in North America from 1534 to 1860. Eventually, approximately 1000 sources and more than 100,000 pages of text will be made available. The collection focuses on personal accounts from an amazing array of protagonists, including traders, slaves, missionaries, and more. It includes prints, drawings, paintings, maps, and more—all searchable by standardized vocabulary. (LJ 5/15/02)

WEB Factiva Dow Jones Reuters. Price negotiated by site. www.factiva.com
Factiva combines Dow Jones Interactive and Reuters Business Briefings, resulting in access to nearly 8000 sources in 22 languages from 118 countries. The Factiva interface is a lesson in elegance, especially in contrast with the former Dow Jones interface. Clearly designed screens, good possibilities for personalization, and quality content set Factiva apart. (LJ 11/15/02)

WEB Grolier Online's Encyclopedia Americana Grolier. Price negotiated by site. go.grolier.com
Belonging to a set of encyclopedias that contain 45,000 articles from 6500 contributors, linking to over 150,000 additional online resources, the latest version of this database offers unprecedented compliance with ADA standards for web accessibility. Articles provide a respectable amount of information about a topic, with abundant hyperlinks. Apart from related articles, resources include searches in OCLC for further reading, and queries can be made for periodicals based on the article's terms. What seals the deal is the availability of the entire site in a text-only format that is 100 percent ADA-compliant. (LJ 11/15/02)

WEB HAPI Online EBSCO Publishing. Price negotiated by site. www.ebsco.com
HAPI (The Hispanic American Periodical Index) is an authoritative indexing resource for articles, book reviews, original literary works, and other documents about Central and South America, Mexico, the Caribbean basin, the U.S.-Mexico border region, and U.S. Hispanics. It covers the period from 1970 to the present, with about 210,000 citations. Subjects include politics and government, economics, industry and trade, social movements, art, and more. (LJ 7/02)

WEB HeritageQuest Online ProQuest Information & Learning. Price negotiated by site. www.il.proquest.com
HeritageQuest Online contains ProQuest's Genealogy & Local History Online collection of over 25,000 family and local history books, with content from Heritage Quest, the largest provider of genealogical data in the United States. This growing database also includes the complete U.S. Federal Census, 1790–1930; full-text newspaper obituaries; Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Application Files; and Freedman's Bank Records. (LJ 10/15/02)

WEB Oxford Reference Online: The Core Collections Oxford University. Price negotiated by site. www.oxfordreference.com
This first-rate collection of 100 reference titles includes more than 1.5 million dictionary definitions, facts, figures, and quotations on subjects such as history, literature, performing arts, and social sciences. Designed for one-stop shopping, whether one is looking for a quotation, a biography of the Pope, or a definition of a dot chart, the database offers a broader and deeper variety of reference sources than other sites—and you don't have to suffer the ads. (LJ 7/02)

WEB ReferenceUSA infoUSA Inc. Price negotiated by site. www.referenceusa.com
Is it possible to offer efficient directory information about millions of American and Canadian households, businesses, and nonprofit organizations? With ReferenceUSA, it is. Quick Search offers options for business name, city, state, and telephone number, while the Business Custom Search offers a dramatic increase in power searching capabilities. Well-designed and commited to accuracy and quality control. (LJ 10/1/02)

WEB Times Digital Archives, 1785–1985 Gale. Price negotiated by site. www.galegroup.com
Hot off the online presses. The back files of The Times of London have been digitized and made searchable via the familiar InfoTrac interface. Times Digital Archives takes full-text online newspapers to the next step, with page images of the entire newspaper, articles, advertisements, book reviews, and more. (LJ 9/1/02)

WEB Ulrichsweb.com 2.0 R.R. Bowker. Price negotiated by site. www.ulrichweb.com
This nifty and cutting-edge database includes more than 250,000 periodical titles and offers thorough bibliographic information for each title, covering basic description, other editions and formats, document access, publisher, and more. New enhancements in this age of linking are links to tables of contents, abstracts, and full-text and document delivery arrangements with vendors such as CatchWord and Infotrieve. A truly beautiful transformation. (LJ 9/15/02)

CD-ROM Polk City Directories Polk Directories. Windows 95+,ME, XP,NT 4. 2002. Call for price. www.citydirectory.com/polk/index.htm
These directories first appeared in 1870 and are today custom-published for over 10,000 cities and regions in the United States. The CD-ROM includes alphabetical listings with names, phone numbers, and addresses, as well as information on home ownership and length of residence. Other parts of this gold mine include a business directory with company names, addresses, phone numbers, number of employees, and more. Exceptionally thorough. (LJ 11/15/02)

CD-ROM Pronunciation Power Idioms Encomium Publications. Windows 95+/ Power Mac 8.6/9X/OS X. 2002. Price: $19.95; network version available. www.encomium.com
A tool for English-language learners interested in perfecting their use of idiomatic expressions, this disc comprises 104 idioms, three exercise sets designed to reinforce learning and practice, an Idiom Quiz section, as well as a detailed help section. The text is often accompanied by sound as well as illustrations. Well constructed. (LJ 12/02)

CD-ROM Ready! Set! Sign! Ready! Set! Sign! LLC. Windows 95+. 2002. Price: $99.95 (five-disc set). www.readysetsign.com
The signs taught in this 24-lesson course for beginning signers aged ten and up are all stipulated to be "totally accurate for use in communicating through American Sign Language and totally accurate for use in communicating through Pidgin Signed English." Some of the features include 13 hours of video instruction, sign searching, finger spelling, and number signing. (LJ 12/02)