Internet Resources: March 2022 Edition

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

Posted on March 3, 2022 in Internet Resources

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Gale Literature Criticism. Gale, part of Cengage Learning, 2021. Contact publisher for pricing.
https://www.gale.com/databases/literature-criticism

“Gale Literature Criticism (GLC) provides a (potentially) wide selection of literature criticism articles and original interpretive materials appropriate for undergraduates,” comprising more than 2,400 ebook volumes and spanning 10 series, including “Children’s Literature Review,” “Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism,” “Contemporary Literary Criticism,” and “Drama Criticism,” among others, as Stacy Magedanz wrote for ccAdvisor. Magedanz went on to point out that the “interface is generally friendly and easy to use,” though “the user’s experience will … depend primarily on the selection of content that subscribing institutions are able to provide within the database. For instance, if an institution only offers access to “classical and medieval literature criticism, users looking for a contemporary author will come away disappointed.”

Users can sort through content using “[t]he simple search at the top of every page,” which “will suggest terms and offer any matching topics at the top.” Other search features include “Browse Topics,” which “attempts to duplicate the experience of browsing the index of the print volumes,” and “What’s Inside,” which “allows the user to browse by series and volume number,” Magedanz wrote. “The main page of GLC [also] features a tiled selection of frequently studied topics, works, and authors,” Magedanz added. As the reviewer went on to note, “[r]elated topics also appear on the gateway page, and below them, a Featured Criticisms section, which pulls relevant critical articles from a volume in the [10] series offered.” 

“Strictly speaking, there is no product like Gale Literature Criticism since the ebook series it offers are unique to Gale,” Magedanz concluded, though “ProQuest LION is certainly a competitor for the constellation of Gale literature-related products.” Other possible alternatives include MLA International Bibliography with Full Text and Library Reference Center Plus, both from EBSCO. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All undergraduates.

This review is a summary of a longer review by Stacy Magedanz, John M. Pfau Library, California State University San Bernardino, originally published in ccAdvisor.org. Copyright © 2021 by The Charleston Company. —Abstracted from, ccAdvisor

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NewspaperArchive. World Archives, 2021. Contact publisher for pricing.
https://newspaperarchive.com/

NewspaperArchive “currently offers subscription-based, full-text, online access to 11,548 American and 3,878 international newspaper titles,” with “strong coverage of the US from 1772 to the present and international content for more than 40 countries,” as J. Coelho wrote for ccAdvisor. Coelho added that the database’s “strength is [its] vast selection of small-town and short-run newspaper titles,” which is sure to be of interest to “a broad range of users,” from “students in higher grade-school levels through graduate school and beyond.”

NewspaperArchive maintains a “simple and uncluttered” user interface, similar in style to Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org, though “[t]he layout differs for personal and for institutional subscribers.” As these sites aim to “help people ‘discover their family’s history,” they also “prioritize name (first and last) searching over keyword searching,” Coelho contended, though NewspaperArchive does also offer options for searching by keyword or publication title, in addition to Advanced Search options. In fact, searching overall is intuitive, though it is suggested that users “consult the Newspaper Titles Directory page,” which can be accessed by selecting the Publications tab on the navigation bar, before searching, as “the selection of titles is not comprehensive, and gaps exist in geographic and date-range coverage,” Coelho noted. The institutional site also offers functions for browsing publications by date or location and a feature titled “This Day in History … highlight[ing] a selection of events that happened on specific days in history,” Coelho observed.

Possible alternatives to NewspaperArchive include Accessible Archives (focusing on colonial American history, African American history, and women’s suffrage), America’s Historical Newspapers (AHN) from Readex (offering access to about 7,500 newspaper titles, many of which are not included in NewspaperArchive), Chronicling America, 1789–1963 (freely available from the Library of Congress), Newspapers.com from Ancestry, and ProQuest Historical Newspapers (PHN). Summing Up: Recommended. General readers through faculty.

This review is a summary of a longer review by J. Coelho, Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, originally published in ccAdvisor.org. Copyright © 2021 by The Charleston Company. —Abstracted from, ccAdvisor

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Pivot-RP. ProQuest, 2021. Contact publisher for pricing.
https://exlibrisgroup.com/products/pivot-funding-opportunities-and-profiles/

Pivot-RP is a database that compiles “research funding opportunities [to facilitate] research collaborations and [offer] insight into the funding landscape as well as internal benchmarks,” wrote Ellie Dworak for ccAdvisor, “address[ing] the needs of researchers and research development professionals alike.” Dworak went on to note that “the site [also] includes a database of previously awarded grants, a directory of calls for conference papers, auto-generated (but customizable) researcher profiles, and communication and workflow tools for grant administrators and development professionals.”

“To say that Pivot-RP‘s funding database is comprehensive is an understatement,” Dworak contended. At the time of this review, the Funding section contained over 28,000 active funding opportunities (totaling over $116 billion), and the Awarded Grants section contained contributions from 46 funders, including the expected US agencies (e.g., the National Science Foundation), as well as funders from at least 10 other countries, including Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK.

As Dworak found, “navigating through the site [is] easy and intuitive.” The home page features a large central search box, under which “three clearly defined content areas provide user-customized content and … other resources for getting started,” and “the navigation bar [provides] links to the five main content sections (Funding, Profiles, Conferences, Awarded Grants, and News).” Ultimately, Pivot-RP “is a good resource that works as advertised,” seeming to live up to “[its claim] to be the most comprehensive global source of funding opportunities.”

“The only true competitor to Pivot-RP is Elsevier’s Funding Institutional,” Dworak concluded, though “it is not as comprehensive” as Pivot-RP. Other alternatives include GrantForward, GrantSelect, and SPIN Funding Opportunities. However, this platform’s “commitment to quality … tips the balance in favor of Pivot-RP over its competitors.” Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students and faculty.

This review is a summary of a longer review by Ellie Dworak, Boise State University, originally published in ccAdvisor.org. Copyright © 2021 by The Charleston Company. —Abstracted from, ccAdvisor

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The Woman’s Tribune. Accessible Archives, Inc., 2021. Contact publisher for pricing.
https://www.accessible-archives.com/collections/womans-tribune/

“The Woman’s Tribune provides full-text access (in both digitized and text formats) to the [full run of the] biweekly newspaper of the same name published between 1883 and 1909,” which “was the second-longest-running women’s suffrage newspaper in the US,” as Erica Swenson Danowitz wrote for ccAdvisor. With content spanning “advertisements, book reviews, domestic news stories, editorials, poetry, recipes, and international coverage of suffragist issues … [t]his resource [will support] the research needs of faculty, advanced undergraduates, and graduate students,” particularly those researching American or international suffragist movements.

Mirroring other Accessible Archives products, the user interface is straightforward and easy to navigate, though occasional challenges with searching may arise, stemming from the current indexing. Search features include “facets that allow narrowing results by publication date, publication type, or particular collections, if available,” as well as truncation, wildcard, and proximity searching. “Users can also browse the entire contents of an issue,” Danowitz noted, adding that, once retrieved, “results also include a Keywords in Context link that allows finding the exact locations of searched text in documents.”

Containing “detailed articles about customs, the education of girls, and other topics, in addition to the suffragist movements in many areas of the world, including Australia, India, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the UK,” as well as debates on “issues from a bygone age, such as alternatives to the ‘compressing corset,’” The Woman’s Tribune “will be a great complement … to other collections available through Accessible Archives, especially the Women’s Suffrage Collection,” Danowitz concluded. Gale’s Nineteenth Century Collections Online and ProQuest’s Gerritsen Collection also offer the complete collection of The Woman’s Tribune, so “libraries interested in comparing these products may want to examine permanent access availability vis à vis subscription options with other vendors who offer this title to calculate cost differences.” Summing Up: Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty.

This review is a summary of a longer review by Erica Swenson Danowitz, Delaware County Community College, originally published in ccAdvisor.org. Copyright © 2021 by The Charleston Company. —Abstracted from, ccAdvisor

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