Database Evaluation: Thomson-Gale's Expanded Academic ASAP
1. Purpose
Expanded Academic ASAP provides electronic access to "scholarly journals, news
magazines, and newspapers - many with full text and images." This powerful database
allows users to search over nine and a half million articles within a few seconds! In most
cases, the user not only accesses the bibliographic citation, but can retrieve the entire
article, too. I'm old enough to know how incredible this is! It is so much better than
looking through volumes of H.W. Wilson's Guide to Periodical Literature to locate
citations. The old print guides did not allow for advanced search capabilities such as
those provided by electronic databases. For the old method to work, you needed to spend
much more time using the guides to get the citation. Then you needed to be in a library
and hope that it had the journals you sought. Finally, you needed to go through the stacks
to find the desired sources. Expanded Academic ASAP instantaneously provides the most
recent information, using sophisticated searching tools from any Internet connection.
This is technology at its best.
2. Scope
Expanded Academic ASAP is vast. I was dumbstruck when I examined the title list. Less
than half of the letter "A" revealed journals pertaining to the following topics: finance,
accounting, history, technology, marketing, psychology, medicine, regional studies,
archaeology, engineering, government, law, biology, art, antiquity, drama, fitness,
pharmacology, cinema, economics, horticulture, ethnic studies, sports, mathematics, and
philosophy. Users can access full text to many years of articles for most journals.
Indexing, abstracts and images are often available as well. Expanded Academic ASAP
has more than nine and a half million articles from over 2000 journals. It meets research
needs across all academic disciplines and many general interest topics as well.
This powerful database does have one major limitation -- back issues. The earliest
articles on this site date from the early 1980s. Most date from the 1990s. If a researcher
needs older articles, then he/she must use the old print guides and methodology.
3. Audience
This powerful database is quite useful for anyone from high school on up with
proficiency in English. The reading level of most of these journals is too advanced for
most middle school students. Researchers who want to know the latest breakthroughs
will find this to be an excellent source. It's useful for practically anyone who has an
interest in practically anything -- academic, current events or recreational. If you read
English and blood flows through your brain, you will find numerous articles of interest.
4. Authority
This database allows users to access articles to many journals. Therefore, the authority of
the database, and the authority of the journals are closely linked. Although I had never
heard of hundreds of these journals, I noticed many highly regarded ones. Some of these
include: Advertising Age, American History, American Journal of Education, Amicus
Journal, Atlantic Monthly, Journal of American Culture, Michigan Quarterly Review,
New England Journal of Medicine, New Yorker, Smithsonian, Scientific American,
Science, Time, Utne Reader, and Yale Law Journal.
5. Currency
This database is updated almost daily, and contains articles going back to the early 1980s.
6. Arrangement/Format/Organization
The site is conveniently arranged and easy to navigate. The left-hand side of the screen
contains the following navigational links: Help - Search, Title List, Subject guide,
Relevance search, Keyword search, Advanced search, Start over, Gale Group Databases,
and Library. For example, if you want to do an "Advanced search," simply click on the
corresponding link and the "Advanced search" screen appears. Fill in the appropriate
boxes on the "Advanced search" screen, and click the "Search" button. The database will
provide hits within a few seconds.
7. Special search features
The "Advanced search" function incorporates the usual Boolean operators -- AND, OR
and NOT. In addition, the user can limit the search to full text articles or include just
citations. I love the "refereed publications" option. This allows the user to see only peerreviewed articles. To see how this powerful tool works, I did a sample search.
Remember the big brouhaha several years ago when researchers in Utah claimed they
found an easy way to do cold fusion? I did a little experiment with that in mind. First, I
did a search for full text articles with "cold fusion" listed as key words. This produced
221 hits. Obviously, one could learn a lot about cold fusion by reading articles at this
site. However, if a person wanted only expert opinion, it would be best to limit the
search by selecting "refereed publications." A search for refereed articles about cold
fusion produced 45 hits. That limited the search nicely, but I wanted to see if I could
search more precisely. Could I get peer reviewed articles about the cold fusion
experiments in Utah? Yes! A search for "cold fusion" and "Utah" seeking refereed
articles produced five, very relevant articles -- exactly what I wanted! This technology
allows the user to work smarter rather than harder. While I was at it, I quickly did a
search for refereed articles about the book, 1421 The Year the Chinese Discovered
America. I want to know if any scholars have written about that book. This database did
not reveal any peer-reviewed articles.
Also, I was interested in knowing about UN Security Council resolutions against Israel. I
had read elsewhere that there are more such resolutions against Israel than all other
nations combined. (Interesting, in view of the fact that we hardly ever hear about these
through American news media.) I searched for full-text articles about Israel and UN
resolutions. I got nine hits including one from The Economist that provided a good
summary of several resolutions against Israel. I did not find the specific answer to my
question (probably the UN itself is the best source), but the search was fast and
productive.
Final Summation and Evaluation.
I love this product. It provides the best of two worlds -- print and electronic. We benefit
from the scholarship, authority and editorial control of the established print media
combined with the breathtaking speed, currency and advanced search capabilities of
electronics. The vast majority of these articles have been written by experts in their field
and reviewed by knowledgeable editors -- something found only intermittently on the
Internet. The articles in these journals usually provide depth and analysis that are lacking
at many Internet sites, which are often superficial, grossly biased or both.
This database has already changed the way I seek information. Prior to this assignment, I
often would do a google search to get more information on many news items. Now, I'm
often using this database to find more reliable information. For example, I recently read
an article by a U.S. Army medical officer who believes that the use of depleted uranium
(DU) weapons has caused serious illness to citizens of Iraq and U.S. soldiers following
the 1991 Gulf War. I wanted to learn more so I used Expanded Academic ASAP. Within
seconds I located 36 articles about DU. These came from respected sources, such as, New
Scientist, Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, National Catholic Reporter, The New
York Times, United Press International, and The Economist. Through these articles I
learned quite a lot about the controversy.
Expanded Academic ASAP is fast, convenient, authoritative, comprehensive, current, and
multidimensional. Five stars!