Thomson Gale Database Overview

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Thomson GaleDatabase Overview

• Hilde Kempenaers
• Mediadag i Göteborg 2005

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Thomson

• A leading provider of integrated information
  solutions to education, business and professional
  markets worldwide
• Four major market groups
• Legal Regulatory
• Financial
• Scientific Healthcare
• Learning
• Thomson Learning
• Higher Education
• Library Reference

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Thomson Learning Library Reference

• Research and Reference sources
• Print
• Online
• Microform
• Information sources for all library sectors
• Primary schools to higher education
• Public libraries, government and national
  libraries
• Responding to key elements of academic research
• Evidence Primary Sources
• Opinion Journal content
• Information Reference titles

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Library Reference Database Options

• InfoTrac Databases
• Standard platform
• Periodicals, Newspapers
• Easy to use
• 5 search options

• Resource Centers
• Integrated databases
• Multiple sources full text periodicals /
  reference / primary sources
• Flexible search and retrieval

• eBooks
• Purchase one book at a time
• Search across within eBook collection

• Digital Archives
• Reference, newspaper and Research Collections

• KGSaur
• Biographical, bibliographical and reference
  content
• Print, Online,CD-ROM, fiche

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Biography Resource Center Content

• 1.4m biographies on over 1m people
• Nearly 415,000 biographical entries from 120
  respected Gale sources
• 1 million thumbnail biographies from the
  Marquis Whos Who
• 280 magazines containing full-text articles
• 15,000 relevant Web sites
• 30,000 thumbnail biographies from Debretts
  People of Today
• 11,000 thumbnail biographies from Carrolls
  Directories
• Between 100,000 and 140,000 new and/or updated
  biographies are added to
  the database each year

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Recent Enhancements

• 66,000 descriptors added to BioRC in 2004
• Descriptors nationality, occupation, and
  birth/death date information in
  parentheses---help users scan results lists to
  identify more quickly the person for whom they
  are searching
• View recent update" links now appear within most
  of the narrative biographies in a separate
  "Updates" section
• Between July - Dec 2004, 42 published volumes
  (containing nearly 73,000 new/revised
  biographies) added to BioRC
• 450 new entries that have not appeared in any
  Gale print source
• Content from recent volumes of Gale's
  Contemporary Theatre, Film Television and
  Gale's Contemporary Musicians

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Updating BioRC

• Most biographies have been published or
  substantially updated within the past five years
• Nearly 73,000 new/revised biographies (July-Dec
  2004)
• Every year, more than 1,000 biographies are
  written specifically for BioRC
• Web sites are added every three months
• Every two weeks, updates and corrections are made
  to biographies already in the database
• Full-text periodical articles added daily

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Contemporary Authors

• 112,000 modern novelists poets, playwrights,
  nonfiction writers, journalists and scriptwriters
• All print volumes of Contemporary Authors
• All print volumes of Contemporary Authors New
  Revision Series
• Volumes 1-2 of Contemporary Authors Permanent
  Series
• Current writers of fiction, nonfiction, poetry
  and drama
• Prominent print and broadcast journalists,
  editors, photojournalists, syndicated
  cartoonists, screenwriters and more
• Literary greats of the early 20th century whose
  works are popular in todays school and college
  curriculums

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Summary

• Simple-to-use interface
• Search by author, title, subject, genre and full
  text
• Combine criteria for complex searches - very
  broad or very specific
• Contains only the most complete and up to date
  entries
• Continuous data updates - providing the most
  current information on authors available anywhere
• Subscribers to CA can cross-search Contemporary
  Literary Criticism Select and/or Dictionary of
  Literary Biography simultaneously

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Information Retrieval

• Comprehensive information on authors from all
  genres - includes
• Authors name and pseudonym, address, career
  summary, genre, nationality, ethnicity,
  education, political preference, religion,
  interests memberships, awards and honors,
  obituary
• Personal information - authors date and place
  of birth and family data, including parents,
  spouses and children, photographs
• Autobiographical essays
• Links to recent news about the author
  Contemporary Authors interviews, and biographical
  and critical sources.

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Introduction

• Name Search

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Contemporary Literary Criticism Select
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Introduction

• CLC Select - Contains published criticism on the
  works of novelists, poets, playwrights, short
  story writers, and other creative writers now
  living or who died after December 31, 1959.
• Provides subject-term accessibility and an index
  that extends to every volume in the extensive
  Contemporary Literary Criticism Series.
• Access to authors in ongoing volumes of
  Contemporary Literary Criticism, beginning with
  Volume 95 plus 260 most-studied authors from
  earlier volumes
• Covers a range of novelists, poets, short story
  writers, playwrights and other creative writers -
  from established authors to emerging new talent

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Content

• Entries provide extensive information including
• Introduction to the Author - a discussion of the
  authors life, works and critical importance
• Critical essays - essays and excerpts taken from
  books, magazines, literary reviews, newspapers
  and scholarly journals interviews with featured
  authors where available
• Bibliographical citations
• Suggestions for further reading - an annotated
  bibliography of sources for further study

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Search Options

• Building on the strength of the print series,
  Contemporary Literary Criticism Select offers
  many new channels of access to the information
  you need
• Search the database by
• Author name
• Biographical details, such as nationality,
  ethnicity, gender, year of birth or death,
• Title
• Subject/Genre
• Critic/Critical Source
• Full-text (allows you to search for a word or
  phrase in any entry)

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Author Search

• Enter complete name or any word / combination of
  words

• Variant names pseudonyms are also searchable

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Technical Features

• InfoMarks MARC records
• ITConfig
• User Statistics
• Links to Library Holdings
• Links to external Websites
• OpenURL / SFX linking
• Meta Search engines Z39.50 / HITS
• Custom Branding

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What is an InfoMark?

• A stable URL linked to your Gale database
• A single-click to any page of search results
• Using an InfoMark performs a search again -
  whether the result is a single article or a list
  of articles

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Use InfoMarks to create

• Reading lists
• Current awareness topic sites - links to
  periodical or newspaper sources
• Online/distance learning courses
• Bibliographies, reference lists
• e-Learning sites
• Electronic journals and periodical directories
• Teacher lesson plans
• Student assignments

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Easy to create !

• If you can copy and paste you can use InfoMarks
• Copy the URL of a results page and paste into
  your electronic document web page, word
  processing document, e-mail or Virtual Learning
  Environment (VLE)
• Once InfoMarks are incorporated into a document,
  the results are persistent (the URLs will not
  change) and are dynamic
• By posting an InfoMark you preset a search path
  that is available to all jointly subscribed users

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Thomson PowerSearch
InfoTrac Searching
Enter search term
Select the databases you want to search across
Standard search limiters
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Thomson PowerSearch
Search results tabbed into different content
sets
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Questions?

• Hilde Kempenaers
• Benelux Scandinavia, Thomson Gale
• Hilde.kempenaers_at_thomson.com
• PrioInfo
• Sanna-Kaisa Berglund
• sanna-kaisa.berglund_at_infodata.se
• Thomson Gale Technical Support
• Globaltech_at_thomson.com