[Eril-l] When is a Gale database just a sub-collection of another Gale database?

[Michelle Polchow]

Hi Stephen,

I've been doing some legacy clean-up prior to ILS migration, and am adding 'alternative titles' or adding sub-database name to the description of A-Z Database entries, which I think helps control the overwhelming quantity of data users must search.  For users who know the specific resource name that also meets their need.  Another website usability rule that helps here is the link you click should go to something with the same name.  If Gale doesn't have a specific landing page for the product, I wouldn't lead users to something that appears to be misaligned with title they thought they'd find.  I'm also leaving notes in our ERMS as to how I reconciled Gale product structure vs ERMS vs A-Z List.

I'm sure many approaches, so always welcome other thoughts.

Best,
Michelle



Michelle Polchow – Electronic Resources Librarian

Content Support Services

[cid:5b362afb-85c3-46a1-bbc5-4cee44152606]

100 North West Quad

Davis, California 95616-5292

Phone: 530-752-1208 | •:mpolchow at ucdavis.edu<mailto:alingad at ucdavis.edu>

Orcid ID:  0000-0002-4805-8063

________________________________
From: Eril-l <eril-l-bounces at lists.eril-l.org> on behalf of Stephen Francoeur <stephen.francoeur at gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 13, 2021 1:13 PM
To: eril-l at lists.eril-l.org <eril-l at lists.eril-l.org>
Subject: [Eril-l] When is a Gale database just a sub-collection of another Gale database?

We're taking a fresh look at how we present our Gale databases to our users on our website. As a public university in New York state, we have access to a large collection of Gale databases that all public universities, public schools, and public libraries have (via NOVELny). We have also expanded our Gale collections at our university (CUNY) and have purchased a few additional items for our college (Baruch). In reviewing the product page from Gale that shows what databases we have access to, there are quite a few that we've never added links to on our A-Z databases page because they seemed like sub-collections of larger databases.

For example, we don't have a link to Gale OneFile: Computer Science or Gale OneFile: Agriculture because we assume that there isn't any unique content in those databases given that we also have Gale Academic OneFile, Business Insights: Global, Gale OneFile: News, etc. Is this a mistake? I'm thinking at the very least that we might want to activate in Alma every single one of the electronic collections on the off chance there is unique content in some of those smaller databases. What are other libraries with similarly expansive Gale collections doing with presenting Gale databases on their A-Z list? Is anyone else picking and choosing? Is anyone putting every single Gale database they have on their A-Z list?

It's not just the OneFile collections that we find confusing. It's also the Gale in Context series. Is there really any need to link to every single one that we have access to? We've long spotlighted Gale in Context: Opposing Viewpints on our A-Z list (as well as in our reference and instructional settings) but what about all those other Gale in Context databases Should we really be linking to all of them?

Since so many of these Gale databases all begin with "Gale" in their name, our A-Z list is going to get really lopspided when you get down to the part of the list for the Gs (we might have more then 25 different databases beginning with the name "Gale...")

I realize I could detailed comparisons for the Gale databases in Alma to find out for sure if there is any unique content in some of those lesser known Gale databases, but I'm hoping instead that folks here may have already worked through this issue.

Thanks for any thoughts you care to add.

Regards,
Stephen Francoeur
UX Librarian
Baruch College
New York, NUY

--
https://stephenfrancoeur.com
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