A Division of the American Library Association

eLibrary Science Database from ProQuest in Review

May/June 2008

Editor's Note:
John Royce reviewed four ProQuest databases with a focus on history and politics: SIRS Researcher, World Conflicts Today, SIRS Decades: 20th Century American Sources, and three versions of Culture Grams Online – the World, Kids, and States and Provinces editions. In this article, he reviews a database focused on science: eLibrary Science.

eLibrary Science Database from ProQuest in Review

eLibrary Science ( http://www.proquestk12.com/productinfo/elibrary_science.shtml) "offers focused science content and tools with unique video and manipulatives. The electronic database provides full text, science-specific titles and selected articles from non-science specific publications, media, and interactive science content. More than 500 science publications are represented, including reference books, magazines, journals, transcripts, audio/video, and manipulatives." (eLibrary Science)

eLibrary Science's front page offers several options. The main feature is a simple search box with tickbox restrictors for magazines, books, pictures, audio/video, transcripts (of radio and television programs), and websites, with the default set to All Selected. Buttons allow selection of natural language searching or Boolean operators. The sets of advanced search options include date ranges, reading levels, educational standards, and publications. Also on the front page are links to Famous Scientists (each page of which pinpoints articles in the eLibrary Science database, and selected web links), current science news stories, and a calendar linking to science news on this day in history. The front page also provides tabbed links to research by topic (as opposed to keyword), quick reference, and an interactive section.

The Topic Tree has improved from an earlier version that was less than transparent; Medical Sciences has moved from being a sub-topic of Life Sciences (Biology) to inclusion within Health Sciences. However, there remains no mention of Global Warming at the top level, although it is included as a subtopic of Weather & Environment under the main heading of Environmental Studies. Information about the topic Earthquakes is scattered throughout the Topic Tree. It is found as a subtopic of Earth Sciences, History, and Geology. In using the Topic Tree, the user may need to drill down several levels to locate the link to a desired topic.

The Reference Desk links to quick reference resources including dictionaries, encyclopedias, atlases, thesauri, almanacs, and other materials. The Interactive section links to a number of flash video demonstrations and quizzes, including a frog dissection, the periodic table of the elements, sine waves, quizzes in a number of subjects, and a section on health issues such as radiation sickness, melanoma, and mad cow disease.

As with many of the other ProQuest databases reviewed, with all methods of entry, it is possible to add selected articles and other hits to My List, where it is easy to view, print, or e-mail items on the list. These lists, however, are not saved from session to session. Teachers are able to send a selected list to the Bookcart – a nice earmarking feature for teachers to guide their students in learning or research. These lists can be shared with other teachers in the school and at other schools, and the Bookcart list can be stored for re-use.

The main feature of eLibrary Science is the keyword search. The searcher has the option of clicking on a Refine Search link that leads back to the main search page and the possibility of more advanced searching. It is also possible to bring hits from specific source types to the top of a results list. Papers and articles from scholarly journals are highlighted, suggesting that these hits might be more authoritative. As noted, one can perform a natural language search or enter a Boolean expression. Interestingly, natural language searches for single terms find the same number of hits as do Boolean searches for the same terms – but the results are presented in a different order. It is possible with both types of search to re-order the results list by relevance, keyword scores, date, size, reading level, title, or publication. With large numbers of hits, one is offered only the best 250 – presumably enough for any searcher.

Misspellings produce a "Did you mean ...?" query. A search for "dinosaur" found one hit and a request, "Did you mean: dinosaurs?", and a click on that link produced 2124 hits. However, there were 79 hits for ["fibre optics"] and 641 for ["fiber optics"] and no option for the alternative spelling. Since alternate spellings exist in English [compare the American preference for "theater" (1707 results) to the European use of "theatre" (1233 results)], automatic correction and spelling alternatives would be a useful feature, catering to real users.

All in all, eLibrary Science is a very useful and highly recommended resource for science research.

Work Cited

eLibrary Science. http://www.proquestk12.com/productinfo/elibrary_science.shtml Accessed 20 February 2008.

John Royce is Library Director of Robert College of Istanbul. He has also worked in schools in Zambia, England, Malawi and Germany. He is the current Chairman of the ECIS Committee on Library and Information Services, and at various times has been a member of IASL and IBO committees and boards.

He believes that reading is fundamental, even for the millennium generation, and is committed to the principle of lifelong learning, declaring "You don't have to be ill to get better." He is active in the field of plagiarism detection and prevention, and (natural cynic that he is) teaches the need to go to the source: the more you want to believe that something is true, the more necessary it is that you seek verification. His work in International Baccalaureate schools has led to strong interest in international affairs and in internationalism. An article "Walking Two Moons: Crossing Borders with International Literature" was published in Knowledge Quest for November/ December 2006. He has also worked as faculty advisor for his school's Model United Nations and European Youth Parliament clubs.

This column article was edited by Lauri Vaughan and Carolyn Karis.