Everyone’s License
On Public Access to Subscription Databases
I imagine a small fraction of the public realize they have access to some very good subscription databases through their public libraries websites. An OCLC study determined that “58 percent of all respondents are not sure if their library offers access to online databases,” and I believe the total respondents included college students, 71% of whom knew that their college libraries include those. There’s clearly a lot of people unaware of what they have.
I wonder what proportion of Americans really have that access. There are often consortia that offer it. The number of databases available from even a good public library will never match an ARL school’s or most colleges otherwise. But people in decent-sized cities, at least, frequently do have access to a lot of good research resources. I’ve most recently lived in Houston and Pittsburgh. Each of those library systems has subscriptions to a number of research databases that exceeded my expectations. Anyone with a library card can use those databases over the web, and, of course, any resident within their local area can get a library card. It increases access wonderfully.
Of course, it raises the question of information literacy in a significant way. While in pursuing my MLIS in Pittsburgh, I worked part-time with at an office downtown and discovered that the highly intelligent, educated professionals I worked with never went to the library. It had no appeal, and they had no interest. I wonder, then, how many are apt to care about or effectively use such resources when they do know of them. Other relevant questions come to mind, though. I wonder if the research is out there already addressing them. Specifically:
- What are the public library systems, or consortia, with web access to research databases from vendors such as EBSCO and ProQuest/CSA?
- How many public libraries don’t offer such access?
- What are the total populations of people within the areas served for groups 1 and 2 above?
- How many people within group 1 (and for that matter group 2 and the nation altogether) even hold library cards at all?
- How many library cardholders within group 1 know about those research databases? And/or how many use them?
For all I know so far, most of America may have be in group 1 above, or perhaps only a small minority. This seems like the sort of thing someone’s already looked into and is keeping an eye on. Organizations I’m going to look to first are ALA’s Public Library Association (PLA) and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). If the research has been done and the answers are out there somewhere, I’d think the PLA should have it. It seem like something the IMLS might be interested in, though, too, so they’re worth a look. While I’m very much of the opinion that the PLA ought to point to the research if it’s out there, it’s plausible that they don’t but it’s nonetheless written up in some scholarly LIS journal. In that case, I may, somewhat ironically, be hampered by a lack of database access. I was rather spoiled by Pitt having three different LIS databases, giving me confidence I was covering pretty much everything. I was afraid at first HPL didn’t have any, but they do have one. So it’ll certainly be helpful but likely not comprehensive. I’ll confront that difficulty as I exhaust other options. I’m curious enough to do original research here, but of course I don’t want to waste effort duplicating what’s already out there.
In conjunction with simply answering the questions above, this page is where I’m going to list and link, with some discussion, the relevant public library resource database web pages. At least for now. Depending on how much I do or don’t like the setup of the Page feature in WordPress, I may also put this info into a flat HTML page or some other such format. In any event, I’m definitely going to change this page as I gather more information and links. Anyway, resources such as I mean are here:
Houston Public Library: All, A-Z. By Topic.
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh: All, A-Z. By Topic.
Harris County (TX): All, A-Z. By Topic.
Chicago: All, A-Z. By Topic.
Even the sadly primitive website of my tiny hometown library offers access to much through the POWER Library cooperative effort. Texas libraries seem to benefit from a similar arrangement. It seems worth examining how many states have such setups, how expansive they are, and how far beyond those the libraries of larger cities go with their database access.
Last updated June 2, 2008.
