Internet Resources: June 2022 Edition

Selected reviews of digital reference resources from the June issue of Choice.

Posted on June 2, 2022 in Internet Resources

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Comics Plus. LibraryPass Contact publisher for pricing.
https://comicsplusapp.com/

“Comics Plus offers subscribers a digital library of comics, manga, and graphic novels licensed from more than 100 different publishers, including such indie gems as IDW, Boom Studios, Dark Horse, and Kodansha Comics,” altogether encompassing more than 20,000 titles, as Michael Hughes wrote for ccAdvisor. However, best-selling books from the industry’s top publishers—namely Marvel, DC, Image, and VIZ Media—are noticeably absent. Comics Plus is designed for school, public, and academic libraries, though it appears primarily geared toward the first two. Comics are sorted “into four age tiers: kids and children; teens; young adults; and adults,” with “adult comics constitut[ing] about 30 percent of the library at time of [this] writing.” 

Readers can browse through the comics by popularity, recency, genre, or publisher. There’s a search field to find titles, and search results provide item records with each book’s essential details, e.g., author(s), publisher, language, genre. Reading on the platform is straightforward: once a title is selected, users click Read Now to launch the interface. As Hughes elaborated, “clicking anywhere on the page will summon an overlay with zoom tools, a progress indicator, and thumbnails of the book’s pages laid end to end, allowing readers to jump forward or backward.”

Hoopla, from Midwest Tape, and Libby, from OverDrive, are Comics Plus’s primary competitors; both offer access to mainstream titles not available through Comics Plus. Because of this, despite the platform’s abundance of content, it is likely to be only a supplementary resource. Nevertheless, it is important to consider that there are no waiting lists, titles can be read an unlimited number of times by multiple users simultaneously, and the “granular title control gives administrators the power to customize Comics Plus to suit” readers’ preferences. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers, lower-division undergraduates, and two-year students.

This review is a summary of a longer review by Michael Hughes, Trinity University, originally published in ccAdvisor.org. Copyright © 2022 by The Charleston Company.—Abstracted from, ccAdvisor

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Leftist Newspapers and Periodicals. ProQuest Contact publisher for pricing.
https://about.proquest.com/en/products-services/pq-hist-news/

“Leftist Newspapers and Periodicals, a subsection of ProQuest Historical Newspapers, is a collection of Leftist periodicals (largely communist and socialist), dating from 1845 to 2015,” wrote Thomas J. Beck for ccAdvisor. Altogether, the database “contains 156 titles,” all of which are newspapers or historical newspapers, “for a total of 185,000 pages.” As Beck noted, these titles “are drawn from 12 U.S. states,” though “there are also several international titles.” As Beck found, this resource will be quite useful to “those looking for primary sources on Leftist history or ideology … including students and researchers in history, political science, sociology, and the humanities in general.” He also acknowledged that “this may be a limited number at many colleges and universities, given this database’s primary focus on communism and socialism” to the exclusion of other Leftist political philosophies.

Basic Search and Advanced Search options are available, as is the option to Change Databases. Basic Search is a single search bar with no limiters; Advanced Search provides the option to target a query to a particular field in an article. Beyond this, options are quite limited. Change Databases allows users to move between ProQuest databases to which their institutions subscribe. Novice users may need training to use this database effectively, though “when this search is done properly it can produce a large number of on-point results,” Beck contended.

Although narrow in scope, “this is a somewhat unique resource because there don’t appear to be many others directly like it,” Beck concluded. Alexander Street’s Revolution and Protest Online is a possible competitor, especially given its far broader coverage scope and inclusion of materials beyond just periodicals, though “as a consequence its coverage of periodicals … is less comprehensive.” Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.

This review is a summary of a longer review by Thomas J. Beck, University of Colorado, Denver, originally published in ccAdvisor.org. Copyright © 2022 by The Charleston Company.—Abstracted from, ccAdvisor

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Revolution and Protest Online. Alexander Street. Contact publisher for pricing.
https://alexanderstreet.com/products/revolution-and-protest-online

Revolution and Protest Online contains “several hundred images, almost 200 videos, and nearly 100,000 pages of content” on revolutions and resistance, protest, and social movements from the 18th to the 21st centuries, wrote Thomas J. Beck for ccAdvisor. Material is drawn from various national and international sources, including the U.S. State Department, the British Admiralty, and several university presses. This database will be most useful for undergraduate and graduate students looking for primary and secondary sources for research in political science, history, sociology, and anthropology. As Beck also noted, “the collections in this database are static, so the number of pages and hours of video available here are unchanging,” meaning that “current protest movements such as Black Lives Matter or Me Too are not included.”

“This database is not difficult to navigate, and finding materials … is relatively easy, using either the [B]asic or [A]dvanced searches,” Beck continued. Browsing is also fairly easy, using the 12 available tabs to browse by title, events and areas, themes, archival collections, and more. The Basic Search function is by default a Boolean AND search. No other limiters are available, except for those on the results page (e.g., format, content type, author/creator, subject, among others). The Advanced Search function is much more flexible and effective, though also far more complex and multilayered.

As Beck concluded, Revolution and Protest Online will be very useful for scholars and students conducting relevant research, though the “degree it will be of use to a particular institution will depend on the demand … for this kind of information versus its price, which in some instances might be substantial.” ProQuest’s Leftist Newspapers and Periodicals is a potential competitor, though its scope is narrower. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.

This review is a summary of a longer review by Thomas J. Beck, University of Colorado, Denver, originally published in ccAdvisor.org. Copyright © 2022 by The Charleston Company.—Abstracted from, ccAdvisor

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RILM Abstracts of Music Literature with Full Text. EBSCO Contact publisher for pricing.
https://www.ebsco.com/products/research-databases/rilm-abstracts-music-literature-full-text

RILM Abstracts of Music Literature with Full Text (RAFT) “includes over a million bibliographic records with coverage from the early 1800s to the present,” as well as “full text coverage of more than 250 journals,” which are unique to the database, wrote Alyson Vaaler for ccAdvisor. “The database also covers international periodicals, with content from 174 countries,” and provides access to conference proceedings, dissertations, monographs, and essay collections covering subjects spanning anthropology, folklore studies, literature, religion, psychology, and sociology. Overall, Vaaler argued, “the comprehensiveness and quality of RAFT is unrivaled among music databases.”

The interface, which will be familiar to EBSCO users, “offers easy integration with other heavily used music databases, such as Music Index with Full Text and RIPM Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals,” as Vaaler noted. Both Basic and Advanced Search options are available. Advanced Search “allow[s] users to limit searches by language, document type, major topics, and peer reviewed journals.” Users can also use a classification system created by the publisher, Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM), to search for material based on style, geographic location, function, and more. Although “the sheer size of the site, [and] its coverage of items in foreign languages, may make it an intimidating product to use for the casual or novice music researcher … judicious use of search terms, limiters, and key words are important to [successfully] navigate[e] the results.”

Three other music databases frequently used for music research may be possible competitors: Music Periodicals Database, Music Index with Full Text, and RIPM Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals, though they differ in the subjects and dates that they cover. As Vaaler concluded, though, RAFT is an incomparable music research tool, making it a necessary database for serious research. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.

This review is a summary of a longer review by Alyson Vaaler, Texas A&M University, originally published in ccAdvisor.org. Copyright © 2022 by The Charleston Company.—Abstracted from, ccAdvisor

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