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January 15, 2003

Visiting the Virtual Library

By Ronald Schachter

Four digital reference tools take research out of the stacks and onto your desktop.

It wasn't long ago that doing library research meant sorting through hardbound volumes of magazine back issues or scanning rolls of newspaper microfiche, often to find that the article you were looking for was nowhere to be found. Nowadays, the library comes right to your desktop thanks to information databases that instantly put thousands of resources at your fingertips.

We explored four online libraries extensive and sophisticated enough for middle and high school students-bigchalk Library, EBSCO Ultra Online, LexisNexis Scholastic Edition, and SIRS Knowledge Source-by searching keywords "el nino," "campaign finance reform," and "Pulitzer Prize" (see our sample search). The results were often overwhelming, with hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of full-text newspaper and magazine articles returning our queries. Even with helpful ways to limit investigation and sift through results, such abundant resources highlighted the need for teacher-guided instruction on how to conduct and evaluate effective searches.

All the libraries reviewed here are comprehensive resource collections that include national and local newspapers, periodicals, and reference materials. However, students looking for historical perspectives on an event or topic will need to do their research the old-fashioned way, since these offerings generally house sources published after 1980.

bigchalk Library (bigchalk)

Students can launch queries from bigchalk's intuitive search page.

If your students are overwhelmed by the prospect of starting a major research project, bigchalk's intuitively designed search page will put them at ease. Helpful pull-down menus direct queries, allowing students to select the number, dates covered, and even reading level of their results, which then display by type (e.g., magazine, newspaper, etc.), while appropriate picks from bigchalk's reference desk are highlighted, including articles from World Book Encyclopedia and The World Almanac. Topic trees also help students browse by subject area, such as biography and current events.

The organizational advantages of this reference tool match its breadth. Bigchalk publishes special features periodically to pool a comprehensive set of resources that students can explore on their own-among recent features, a retrospective of September 11th. A BookCart option lets teachers and librarians build content corners with articles and Web sites on specific research topics. Add to this an extensive magazine and newspaper collection, a hearty image and multimedia library, as well as transcripts from network news shows and government proceedings. Nevertheless, the shelf life of bigchalk's news resources is shorter than the other libraries reviewed here, extending back in most cases to only 1997. Kids will also need to e-mail or print their search results, since they can't save them online.

EBSCO Ultra Online Package (EBSCO Publishing)

Students select from one of three thematically organized databases to cull EBSCO Ultra Online's rich periodical resources.

Ultra Online provides students with a broad set of resources that are particularly rich in specialty magazines such as The Nation, Scientific American, and Smithsonian, graphics, and reference materials. Ultra Online breaks down into helpful thematically organized databases, including MAS Ultra (newspaper and magazine resources), Health Source (on consumer health issues), and Newspaper Source (regional newspapers and transcripts from network news shows).

Culling interesting magazine articles is MAS Ultra's strong suit. For instance, the more than 800 results from our "el nino" search contained articles from Science, Journal of Climate, and International Wildlife. Likewise, a search on "Pulitzer Prize" brought back more than 600 citations from the Atlantic Monthly as well as Columbia Journalism Review, and included a portrait gallery of past Pulitzer winners with biographies supplied by the Britannica Biography Collection.

Search results display in single-list form and in categories according to source type, such as reference books, primary source documents, and images. Thus, our search on "campaign finance reform" yielded more than 100 primary source documents from presidential briefings, congressional press conferences, and congressional testimony, in addition to several biographical sketches of reformer Sen. John McCain.

Unlike the other services reviewed here, Ultra Online also provides several databases just for educators, including access to ERIC and a Professional Development Collection that includes the full text of 500 journals, among them Education Digest and Education Week.

LexisNexis Scholastic Edition (LexisNexis)

LexisNexis Scholastic Edition features statistical, legal, and legislative databases, in addition to foreign publications in five different languages.

LexisNexis provides the most authoritative combination of national and foreign news sources of the four libraries we evaluated, reaching around the globe to include the Irish Times, Times of London, and Jerusalem Post. Such broad coverage lets student researchers get global perspectives on issues such as the Middle East conflict or global warming, while foreign language students can access resources in French, Spanish, German, Italian, and Dutch.

A distinct feature of LexisNexis is its statistical, legal, and legislative databases. A search in these databases on "campaign finance reform," for instance, added to the thousands of articles we found in the main news database: we also found articles from various law journals, dozens of statistical tables on presidential and congressional election finances, and the text of the reform law that was enacted in 2002.

The prolific, text-heavy results from the LexisNexis database may at first overwhelm student researchers. All three of our keyword searches generated between 5,000 and 7,000 citations from a 22-year period. Fortunately, students can focus their searches using a default setting that limits results to the previous six months, select from additional terms to narrow their queries, or choose newspapers by U.S. region. But without a subject index or topic tree, they may need direction when framing their searches and winnowing the results.

SIRS Knowledge Source (SIRS)

SIRS Knowledge Source features several subject-area databases that include screened Web resources. Students can also set up personal accounts to save searches.

The main search page of SIRS Knowledge Source is a user-friendly introduction to effective searching, featuring links to five research databases, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus, search tips, and guidelines for citing sources. A Topic Browse button takes you to a comprehensive topic tree built around Library of Congress subject headings.

Unlike other offerings reviewed here, students can create their own personal account and save searches from the last 30 days with Session Save and Search History options. The Librarian's corner, which offers a variety of support services to educators, features updates, frequently asked questions, and options for customizing searches and databases. Also included are up-to-the-minute headlines and special coverage of timely topics, ranging from Focus on Terrorism to Cloning to Corporate Accountability.

News content comes from publications such as the Christian Science Monitor, Time, and Newsweek, as well as regional newspapers. And while databases for these publications go back only through 1990 and exclude the New York Times and Washington Post, articles from hundreds of magazines help fill the gap. For example, our "el nino" search results included National Geographic and Popular Science, while "campaign finance reform" featured the Atlantic Monthly.

Another key feature is the SIRS collection of screened Web links that accompany each search results page. For example, our "el nino" search not only turned up 409 magazine and newspaper articles but also produced 27 related Web sites with paragraph-long descriptions from sources ranging from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to the National Wildlife Federation.

Ronald Schachter, a former high school English teacher, currently works as an online curriculum designer and freelance writer in Newton, Mass.

Editor's note: T&L's staff and editors evaluate only those products we can endorse for educational use. Web site reviews are based on content and tools that are available and accurate at the date of publication.

We'd like to thank Apple Computer and Gateway for loaning us the equipment to perform in-house evaluations.

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