HIT: indexes vs. internet only

[Kathy Bowman <kbowman@LINFIELD.COM>]

I wrote asking if it was worth it to subscribe to a periodical index.  I
got one contact from a salesman and everyone else either said YES to the
index or that they are trying to make the same decision.  I decided to go
with the index.(It's a K-12 library).  I chose SIRS Researcher and
Discoverer.

Here are excerpts if you want to read further:

My first question to you is, what level is your media center?  That bill
is hard to swallow... But if you are in a high school, my feeling is,
you must provide an index to periodicals...

I'm in the same boat you are in. Please let me know what  you find out if
you don't post a hit.

Cognito  and Electric Library are a couple of more possibilities.
I am not sure I want to make that investment either.  I still subscribe to
abridged Reader's Guide also.

Please post a hit on this topic.  I am also struggling with this

We haven't discussed this lately (at least this school year) and we
probably need to.  I have been in the same quandry except that I have
ceased sub. to H.W. Wilson's Abridg. Readers' Guide....also have cut
back on the years our back print issues are kept as well as to
eliminate expensive "unpopular-for browsing" periodicals.  All this
since we have Internet, Elect. Lib., and SIRS.  Guess I would like to
have reassurance that my moves to phase out print periodicals for
research are within the mainstream of recentlibrary changes.

I guess it's according to what level your school is.  At my high school we
use magazine indexes extensively.  All of the A level language arts,
economics and science classes are required research various topics.  So,
the index is very useful.

I, too, am wrestling with this problem.  I let our MAS subscription expire
last year, and no one has asked me about it at all this year.  I did
subscribe to Electric Library (about $600) cheaper this year for one
station, but the use of it has been pretty low.  Our students just seem to
prefer the Internet.  I would be interested in what others say about this
topic.

    I think there are several ways you might look at this issue.  First,
think about the cluster of magazines you probably use most often for
information: Time, Newsweek, U S News, etc.  Information accessed from these
magazines usually related to issues that spanned at least 3 -- maybe 5 years.
If you switch to the Web, how are current news Web sites archiving
information?  How far back do they retain and index their information?
Second, there is the issue of reliability of information.  When you seek
information by using a magazine database and then the magazine, this tends to
be a recognized source with editors and a filtering process for information
that is printed in the magazine.  While there are many Web sites that are now
developed by reliable and respected sources, that is not true of all.  If you
switch totally to the Web, are your students ready to be discriminating users
of the information they find?

Stop and think...how could they charge you $2,000 if you could get it
for free.  They'd go out of business immediately.  They must be offering
something of value (whether your students use it or not.)  Yes, you can
get really current stuff on the net, but oft times it disappears after
awhile.  Also there is the concern about the quality of what you find.
We do lots of research here and find both things useful.  The Internet
is not yet the be all and end all.  I'd say it is too soon to chuck the
CD-ROM stuff.  We also require an Internet permission form signed by
parents and some students don't have access for one reason or another.
Then what do they use?

I would love to hear answers you get to this, because I'm facing the same
thing, dropped Proquest, am now just using the Internet.  (Don't have the $$$$,
either!)  I would appreciate hearing from you as to what others say, and as to
what system you personally decided to go with.

I would love to hear the comments that you get. I subscribe to InfoTrac
Super Tom and love it. It is so easy to use ; I love the index format
that lets you go to the exact heading that you need. I like the
instantaneous access.  Our computers don't give us instant links to
the internet and on a bad day when the internet connection is so
slow,we can still get to infotrac on our network. I want the justification
for the subscription to something expensive like elibrary over a
CDRom product like SuperTom.  The best of all worlds is that you can
have both...dream on.

Post a hit.  I find that the kids would rather use the Internet to locate
info instead of InfoTrac or SIRS which is located on each computer.

There is an excellent article in the January/February 1998 Book Report
entitled : Online Service or CD-ROM:  How Do We Decide?

I am trying to decide myself too.  Could you share with the list if you
get much in feedback.  I am seriously considering dropping all the
magazines and getting Discoverer or Sirs but I am unsure.  Out gifted
teacher brings in her classes and uses Readers Guide BUT we only have
Time and Newsweek to support their subject needs and that seems like a
lot of money for 2 magazines (paying for Reader's Guide)

I have over 15 computers in my media center, all connected to the internet,
and I still subscribe to indexes, Newsbank & the MAS.  In fact, I am lucky
enough to be able to afford those in stand alone versions at dedicated
workstations and their counterparts on the web.  Why do I have all this
duplication? Because I feel that it is not only our job to have the student
find an answer, but to be able to use many different types of sources to get
to an answer, and hopefully in the future they would evaluate those sources
and decide which might be better to use in a particular situation.
















Kathy Bowman
Librarian
The Linfield School
Temecula, CA
kbowman@linfield.com

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