Overview

This richly illustrated book provides guidelines for evaluating a variety of database types, including abstracting and indexing, directory, full-text, and page-image databases available in online and/or CD-ROM formats. Jacso discusses the purpose and techniques of comparing and evaluating the most important characteristics of textual databases, such as their scope, dimensions, source coverage, record content, accuracy, consistency, currency, and completeness. Evaluation models and procedures are given for widely used databases (e.g., Books in Print, Ulrich's Periodicals Directory, Library and Information Science Abstracts and their full-text version), whose subject, content, and terminology are familiar to librarians and information specialists irrespective of their specialization. Beyond traditional online and CD-ROM databases, the book illustrates the evaluation of the new Web-born information resources (including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, The Electric Library, and Northern Light).

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9781563087370

Table of Contents

Reviews

?The book is exceptionally well written....highly recommended for all librarians and information professionals interested in databases. It covers both theoretical and practical aspects of content evaluation and will perhaps cause us to view databases in our own discipline more critically. Moreover, the work helps fill a niche in the literature by emphasizing the importance of database content.?-Technical Services Quarterly

The book is exceptionally well written....highly recommended for all librarians and information professionals interested in databases. It covers both theoretical and practical aspects of content evaluation and will perhaps cause us to view databases in our own discipline more critically. Moreover, the work helps fill a niche in the literature by emphasizing the importance of database content. -Technical Services Quarterly Clearly written, entertaining, informative, and revealing...a recommended purchase. -Journal of Academic Librarianship It would need a very long review indeed to do justice to the content of this book....It is a book that will impart wisdom to both database searchers and database producers. -Program: Electronic Library and Information Systems This book is recommended to all in the information field charged with selecting or advising other parties on selecting databases appropriate for their research needs. It is the most complete evaluative guide to databases this reviewer has seen. -E-Streams ?Clearly written, entertaining, informative, and revealing...a recommended purchase.?-Journal of Academic Librarianship ?It would need a very long review indeed to do justice to the content of this book....It is a book that will impart wisdom to both database searchers and database producers.?-Program: Electronic Library and Information Systems ?This book is recommended to all in the information field charged with selecting or advising other parties on selecting databases appropriate for their research needs. It is the most complete evaluative guide to databases this reviewer has seen.?-E-Streams ?The book is exceptionally well written....highly recommended for all librarians and information professionals interested in databases. It covers both theoretical and practical aspects of content evaluation and will perhaps cause us to view databases in our own discipline more critically. Moreover, the work helps fill a niche in the literature by emphasizing the importance of database content.?-Technical Services Quarterly

Author Information

PeTER JACSo is Chair and Associate Professor, School of Library and Information Studies, University of Hawaii, Honolulu. He received the Outstanding Information Science Teacher Award of the American Society for Information Science (ASIS), the Pratt-Severn Faculty Innovation Award, and the Louis Shores-Oryx Press Award for excellence in reviewing databases.

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