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The Harker School serves approximately 1,600 students K-12 on three campuses in California's Silicon Valley. The library's program and services are designed to educate students for success at college and beyond. Our library has invested in a large variety of databases that offer access to thousands of reference books, magazines, newspapers, and primary sources. We expect that students will use journal articles as an important source of information for solving a particular problem or making a decision as part of their academic activities and recreational needs. EBSCO Academic Search Premier, Gale Expanded Academic ASAP, and ProQuest Research Library (see sidebar below) are three large aggregators that index hundreds of peerreviewed, scholarly journal articles and provide the full text of many articles. We undertook an evaluation of how well each of the services we thought of as the big three, as well as the access we provide to other resources, were supporting our school's auricular needs and goals.
In a previous study, Blessinger and Olle (2003) found that, among the big three, EBSCO provides the highest percentage of indexed and full-text titles, with 19 percent more indexed titles than ProQuest and 29 percent more than Gale. However, we questioned if coverage alone would be sufficient in determining which databases to choose. To begin to answer this question, I analyzed their effectiveness for a sophomore research assignment titled "The Myth and the Journey." My results suggest that, as Krumenaker (2001) phrases it, we still have to "fork out" money for all three services. In fact, our library needs to do a better job of supplementing aggregator databases with indexes to free periodical articles and teaching our students about free e-journals. Since our goal is to develop information-literate students, they need to understand that no single source-fee or free-can satisfy all their information needs.
Comparison of Three Primary Aggregator Databases: A Selected Literature Review
In "Comparison of Three Primary Aggregator Databases" Blessinger and Olle (2003) report the results of a study conducted by Louisiana State University Libraries to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the three aggregators: EBSCO Academic Search Premier, Gale Expanded Academic ASAP, and ProQuest Research Library Core. The study compared the journal lists, searching features, article format, data delivery, help screens, and links to outside...