This assignment was more challenging than I thought it would be. I have used numerous databases in the past and can typically navigate them quite easily. There are often advanced search features that allow you to narrow your search results and tailor them specifically to your needs. This way, you do not have to spend much time sifting through a bunch of resources that do not fit your criteria. For example, there is often a peer reviewed journal box that you can check if you only want to find articles in peer-reviewed, scholarly journals. However, each of these two databases left something to be desired.
The Literature and Information Sciences Database
My first problem with the Literature and Information Sciences Database is that it is a privately-owned database and employs a subscription model. Although this is true with many journal databases, you can still typically find multiple avenues to reach it- either through Kent State, OhioLink, Columbus Metropolitan Libraries, or others. This database must be one of the less popular ones because it was only accessible through Kent State with a Kent State log in. This should not have been a problem; however, the Kent State site was not functioning when I first started this assignment, which was frustrating to say the least. I found no alternatives to logging in through the Kent library homepage so I was forced to wait.
After I was able to log in, the database looked fairly similar to more popular databases like Academic Search Premier. I searched "Copyright and Access" and over 1,000 articles were returned. Once I narrowed the search further (using only library-related material), I began compiling my bibliography--this is where the real trouble started.
My bibliography consisted of roughly 25 articles from peer-reviewed scholarly journals, which I then searched in the Social Sciences Citation Index to make sure each article had been sited at least 5 times. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the articles were not found. I don't know if the Social Sciences Citation index typically uses a different pool of journals or if it simply outdated, but the two did not correlate well at all. I spend a great deal of time simply trying to find new articles that waere in both databases--and then hoped that they had been cited five times. Many headaches could have been avoided if the Literature and Information Sciences Database simply included the number of times each article had been cited directly in the search results. This would've allowed me to eliminate articles immediately as well as eliminate the need to use another database.
This is not to say it was all bad. I appreciated that the Literature and Information Sciences Database indexed articles from over 400 peer-reviewed scholarly journals. In fact, I am sure a great number of the articles returned had been cited at least five times and were from well-respected publications. I also appreciated the fact that once I searched, I could narrow down the results to just once about Library Science which narrowed the over 1000 results down to about 220. Lastly, I also appreciated the fact that there was a citation tool that automatically generated the citation to be used in the bibliography for each article.
Google Scholar
I had never used Google Scholar before, but like all Google products, I found it straight forward and easy to use. Immediately, I appreciated that it was free so I did not have to access it through another website that may or may not be working. From there, you simply typed your search terms (Copyright and Access) and were on your way.
Perhaps the best feature of Google was the fact that the number of citations were listed conveniently on the page. I did not have to guess if the article would appear in another database and take time to search for the article. It should be noted, however, there was no guarantee that each citation was from a scholarly work.
The biggest problem with Google Scholar is information overload. When I entered my search terms, over 2 million hits were returned. Some of these were dead links, which was frustrating, and it was hard to tell the validity of the article. If there had been a peer-reviewed journal search, it would have been very helpful.
Another problem is that there are not very many ways to narrow your search results: you cannot choose to search only full-text, you cannot search specific subject categories (you must choose one of their 8 or so listed, but I was not sure which category library science fell into), you cannot choose to search only peer-reviewed journals, etc. Because of these factors, there were thousands and thousands of hits. I then added "librar* as a search terms because that was the only way I could think to narrow down the subject. This reduced the number of results to about 35,500.
In general, I liked using Google Scholar more than the Literature and Information Science database. It was streamlined, which saved me a great deal of time, and it was straight forward. I had thousands of results so there were plenty of articles to choose from, and I could easily see how many times an article had been cited. However, there are certain features from the Literature and Information Science database that I wish Google Scholar would incorporate. The main of which would be a search feature that only returned peer-reviewed works. Another of which would be the ability to search multiple subject areas--not just the prefabricated ones listed.
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