eReviews Sneak Peek: Oxford Bibliographies Online
Cheryl LaGuardia reviews Oxford Bibliographies Online
By Cheryl LaGuardia -- Library Journal, 04/22/2010
In advance of the June 1, 2010, issue, LJ eReviews columnist Cheryl LaGuadia sizes up the highly anticipated Oxford Bibliographies Online, designed to be "a starting point for organizing a research plan, preparing a writing assignment, or creating a syllabus." Request a free trial here.
Content | Usability | Pricing | Bottom Line
Oxford Bibliographies Online (OBO) is designed to be "a starting point for organizing a research plan, preparing a writing assignment, or creating a syllabus." It is an online, born-digital library of discipline-based, selective guides to the core literature in various humanities and social science subjects. It consists of subject modules with 50–100 entries each, the entries being "guided tours" through key literature on specific topics. The modules move from general information on a basic level to in-depth scholarly information and commentaries establishing the value of the information in context within the subject field. Material referenced includes articles, chapters, books, web sites, archives, and data sets. Entries are peer reviewed and vetted by an Editor in Chief and Editorial Board for the subject; the resource is updated quarterly, with 50–75 entries added each year to each subject, along with revisions to current entries. Citations are linked into a library’s collection via OpenURL, full-text via DOIs, or to the web via links to WorldCat and Google Books, with MARC21 records available for free to integrate OBO into a library’s collection. The initial version includes the subjects Classics, Criminology, Islamic Studies, and Social Work. Ten to 12 subject areas (including Atlantic History, Biblical Studies, and Philosophy) will be added later this year.
The opening screen is spare and clean: along the upper edge is a small toolbar with links to Home, About OBO, Subscriber Services, What’s New, Contact Us, and Help. The title of the file appears below, with a search box opposite it at upper screen right. Underneath that is a section in which you can Select One or More Bibliographies (Classics, Criminology, Islamic Studies, Social Work) by checking a box next to its title. Then you can elect to Browse all the entries within your selected subject or Search for a keyword or phrase within your selections (there’s another search box here, with a link to Advanced Search beneath it).
Usability
To begin, I selected the subject Islamic Studies and Browsed the entries in it, which ranged from "Africa, Islam in," "Caliph and Caliphate," "Hadith," "Ka’aba" and "Orientalism and Islam" to "Yemen, Islam in" (there are presently 61 entries in the Islamic Studies section). I decided to read the "Civil Society" entry by Clement M. Henry and Jolie Wood, both at the University of Texas, Austin. (All entries are signed and linked to the author’s web pages or web presences.)
At screen left, a Table of Contents with live links was displayed, outlining the content: Introduction, General Overviews, The Civil Society Debate, Political Islam and Civil Society, Textbooks, Bibliographies, Journals, and Civil Society in Specific Regions: Arab Middle East, Iran, Turkey, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. At screen right is a box headed Islamic Studies with links to About Islamic Studies and Meet the Editorial Board (an impressive list of folks). Below that is a Jump To box in which you can enter text to go to, and below that is the full list of entries in the section that you can go to just by clicking. Below that are links to Related Entries (in this case, Democracy and Islam), and beneath that is a list of the Other Bibliographies in OBO (Criminology, Classics, and Social Work).
I examined the content, and it was interesting and informative. The 161-word Introduction discusses the 21st-century definition of "civil society"; the General Overview references six books and book chapters on the subject that the author considers seminal works (with links to their WorldCat and Google Book citations); Textbooks are linked to WorldCat and Google Book citations, but would presumably link to one’s library holdings once OBO is acquired; and Bibliographies and Journals link to some citations, some web content, and some web sites (for one of which I got a "Not Found, 404 error"). The inclusion of recommended journals in a subject area makes a certain amount of sense, but if the recommending is going that far, I wonder why "Recommended Indexes and Abstracts" aren’t included, since students will need to access more material than just what’s here.
I went back to the home page and did a quick search, for "mamluks," and got four entries and three citations referencing the subject (although when I tried an alternative spelling, "mameluks," I got zero results). When I did a quick search for "mamluk," however, I got nine entries and 19 citations. A look at Help didn’t find any wild card or truncation symbols, so I hope that’s something Oxford is going to add.
Pricing
There are two options for acquiring OBO: by subscription or by perpetual access. Subscriptions are based on institution size and range from $395 per subject for the smallest institutions to $995 for the largest. The more subjects a library subscribes to, the more you save (from five percent up to 20 percent). Perpetual Access is initially provided at a price that includes the first three years of updates (the period of exponential planned growth for the file, with subsequent years providing updates rather than major growth). After the first three years, there will be a hosting and updating fee, while customers not wanting to pay for hosting and updating have the option of owning the content (in some format) that they can keep and self-host, depending upon upgrades and developments in technology. Perpetual access pricing ranges from $3,160 per subject to the smallest institutions to $7,960 to the largest institutions. The more subjects a library "buys," the more it saves via discounts.
Oxford is running an "inaugural year" special that entitles libraries to discounts on top of the multiple subject savings. For libraries that purchase all modules this year (15 different subjects), the publisher is offering an exceptional deal; call your Oxford reps for details.
Bottom Line
In conception, this file is over the top: about a 15. If it can eventually do all that is promised by this launch version, it will be a powerhouse—although keeping it up-to-date will be a challenge. Based on this first look at its content, scope, implementation, and cost, it gets an overall eight. It’s a work very much in progress and merits another evaluation when more material has been added.
My strongest recommendation right now is for public and academic libraries to get a trial and try this out on some of your researchers, ranging from undergraduates to faculty scholars. At present it will serve a fairly narrow slice of researchers, but there’s significant potential here.
