Oxford Reference Online: Premium Collection (subscription database)
URL
www.oxfordreference.com
Summary
Oxford University Press is the world’s largest university press. Its Oxford Reference Online: Premium Collection is a subscription database that is an excellent one-stop shop for a wide range of research needs. This database includes maps, illustrations, timelines, English dictionaries, and bilingual dictionaries all from Oxford publications. The resources cover a wide range of subjects from Food and Drink to Zoology to Consciousness to Black British History. This is a helpful resource for users seeking quick facts, figures or definitions, but they will also find in-depth scholarly articles from trusted sources such as the Oxford Companion series.
The Oxford Online Premium Collection has a total of over 1.4 million entries. The database is updated at least three times per year, and its most recent update included 3,700 recent updates and 7,300 brand new entries.
Evaluation
Library Journal named the Premium Collections one of its Best References of the Year. Given the vast amount of information available through Oxford Reference Online: Premium Collection, high school students may initially need training and support from a librarian in how to effectively search it.
Why Included
This is one of the subscription databases available through the Berkeley Public Library. I decided to review it since the Oxford references have been a trusted, reliable name in research since the late 1800s.
Database Name
Gale/ Cengage’s Opposing Viewpoints in Context (subscription database)
URL
Summary
Gale Cengage’s Opposing Viewpoints in Context is an excellent resource for students who are researching and writing papers on contemporary issues and for teachers who are crafting research assignments. The database addresses a wide range of fields including business and economics, energy and environmentalism, health and medicine, law and politics. From within these fields, students can begin researching timely issues such as Health Care, Climate Change and Immigration. Students can scan the subject headings to help choose a topic, and once they have selected a topic, for example, Oil Spills, they will find a wide range of materials, including websites, academic journal articles, and podcasts on that subject. The database also includes easy access to the award-winning Opposing Viewpoints series put out by Greenhaven Press. The database includes 14,000 pro/con viewpoint essays, 300 primary source documents, 5 million periodical articles, and over 6,000 charts, tables, and graphs.
Evaluation
The Opposing Viewpoints is user-friendly with a clean, easily navigable interface that helps students find resources on all sides of an issue. Once the student has selected a resource on a topic, she will find it very easy to e-mail, print, bookmark, share or translate the article--all of this is available on the right hand side of the screen with the click of a button. At the end of each entry, the database provides a citation and a URL link. This database will be useful to the high school or early college age student who is mostly interested in research using secondary sources.
No comments:
Post a Comment