Literary Database Comparison

ProQuest One Literature

Infobase Bloom's Literature

EBSCO Literary Reference Center Plus

Gale Literature Resource Center

Finding a database solution that meets the diverse literary source needs of community college students can be challenging. There is high variability among the CCC English courses and degrees, both in terms of how many sections are offered, as well as the types of assignments students are asked to complete. The literature databases on the market are also quite different, with respect to breadth (how much literary work is covered) and depth (to what degree are they covered). The scale of the content is reflected in pricing, from highly affordable to incredibly expensive. Since it can be assumed most students exit the community college after the sophomore level, it can be a challenge to subscribe to this content, when the duration of use is short, and the cost exceeds what many community colleges can afford. All of the platforms reviewed provide browsability, and would be very useful for community college libraries, if budgets allow AND instructors assign related projects.

ProQuest One Literature (ProQuest)

Content/Coverage

ProQuest One Literature database includes an extensive selection of study guides, literary criticism, and background information about authors and movements.The initial search makes it easy to limit your results by content type (Criticism, Primary Texts, Author Pages and Reference Works), but the full result set of general articles, book reviews and secondary sources mean that narrowing search results down to a manageable number takes some skill. For example, a general search for the keywords Alice Walker results in nearly 9000 works of criticism, but limiting it to a subject search results in 416 entries of peer reviewed literary criticism, with 487 entries total, 62 Reference Works, and 979 dissertations.

Similar searches for other authors resulted in

• 250 entries of peer reviewed literary criticism for Cormac McCarthy, with 859 entries total.

• 54 entries of peer reviewed literary criticism for Nikki Giovanni, with 325 entries total.

• 79 entries of peer reviewed literary criticism for A Raisin in the Sun, with 890 entries total.

• 4 entries of peer reviewed literary criticism for Amanda Gorman, with 11 entries of criticism total.

• 2 entries of Criticism for The Hate U Give, as well as an author page for Angie Thomas.

Study guides are geared toward novels and are written at the level of a substantive source rather than a scholarly one. They might be effective if an instructor built a curriculum around them, but are not numerous enough to be helpful otherwise. Author pages follow the same concept and are more likely to be of use; instructors can easily direct students to content pertaining to a specific author they are teaching, but might not want to associate their class with a study guide that is too narrow or too broad. However, ProQuest sometimes includes authors with little content except a brief biography page listing age, gender, nationality, and literary period. This makes it difficult to assess how much this database actually moves beyond the canonical, Caucasian, and Western. This is troubling, especially as instructors at the junior college are increasingly looking to teach authors who reflect the identities and experiences of their students.

Relevance to CCCs

The collection is best suited for students who have progressed beyond basic English composition courses and are taking classes that require literary criticism.This is a small subset of community college students, and this database does not lend itself to general usage for non-literature related research, either in format or content. It might have limited use for students looking for biographical information for papers or speeches on an author, but does this no better than a general biographical database that achieves this at a fraction of the price.

The content can be translated into 15 different languages, and in most cases is available as both a downloadable PDF and as full text directly in the database.

Cost / affordability for CCC libraries / pricing model

FTEs are factored into pricing, but it’s unclear whether all ProQuest products use the same bands. The pricing level is similar to Gale Literature Resource Center, making it significantly more expensive than both Bloom’s Literature or Literary Reference Center Plus. It also delivers much more content, and could be the right choice for a college where there is heavy use of literature databases. There are less comprehensive versions of the product from ProQuest that are more affordable, but it was difficult to get straight-forward pricing for any of them.

Usability: Interface/mobile responsiveness

The database is responsive and adjusts to the size of the screen used. It manages to keep most buttons/controls in the same place as it adjusts, making it fairly easy to move from using it on a computer to using it on a phone.

Support

The vendor offers support through chat, a phone number, and a FAQ. You can also submit a case on their website. The sales representatives at ProQuest seem less knowledgeable than those at other companies. Even testing a database required both contacting general support and waiting for the representative to “check” answers.

Interoperability

LTI 1.3 for Canvas is available, and as a Proquest product, ProQuest One Literature integrates seamlessly with Alma. Citations export to RefWorks, EndNote, Citavi, NoodleTools, and EasyBib. Strangely enough, the default format for a literature database is APA 6.

Accessibility

ProQuest One Literature conforms to WCAG 2.1 according to their accessibility statement. Screen readers tend to skip headings, and some content is provided as PDFs, with all of the inherent pitfalls. On-screen zoom worked for all pages that were tested, and all videos tested provided both subtitles and a transcript. Subtitles and transcripts can be translated into other languages by Google Translate.

Privacy

ProQuest uses cookies and says they collect information about users in three different ways: “information provided directly by you or your institution,” “information collected automatically using technological means” (cookies), and “information collected through third parties” (according to the privacy policy). This third-party collection is achieved through data aggregators, and ProQuest provides no information on the type of data collected and why. Cookies can be disabled but can lead to functionality issues.They share anonymized data with publishers and otherwise state the information that a user makes public through their site (posts, user profiles) are not under their control. They do not disclose personal information to third parties for direct marketing purposes. ProQuest does make it clear in their Privacy Policy that while they share data with third parties and says “we remain liable under this privacy policy if such third parties process such personal data in a manner inconsistent” with their policy.

Usage

COUNTER 5 reports are available, and libraries can set up SUSHI data harvesting with administrative access.

Infobase Bloom’s Literature

Content/Coverage

The Bloom’s Literature database contains an author index, a character index, and 'work' index. Content related to 'works' are organized into information types, including Reference, Criticism, Character List, Images, and Videos, although each source type is not available for all works. At the time of writing, entries from published reference works were included, as were open source texts, videos of theatrical performances, as well as clips of Harold Bloom (the database’s namesake) himself discussing literary works.

For context on how some information types may be available:

• Alice Walker had 569 associated reference sources, 206 pieces of criticism.

• Cormac McCarthy had 73 associated reference sources, and 84 pieces of criticism.

• Nikki Giovanni returned 98 reference sources and 40 pieces of criticism.

• A Raisin in the Sun returned 82 reference sources and 50 pieces of criticism.

• Amanda Gorman had 0 associated reference sources, and 2 pieces of criticism.

• The Hate U Give is covered in 4 reference sources and 5 pieces of criticism.

The database is less likely to contain many more current literature texts. For example, we were able to locate an author biography about Anthony Doerr, but nothing about his text, All the Light We Cannot See. While there are recently published sources that make up the content in Bloom's Literature, they are texts like the 2024 edition of Twentieth Century British Literature which contain entries on Graham Greene, Joseph Conrad, William Golding and others. Information appears to come from published book sources, rather than literary journals (in the case of literary criticism). While the content is mostly written for an academic audience, the breadth of literature and authors is lacking.

The platform has a "Curriculum Tools" area, which links to both "Tools for Students" and "Tools for Educators." The label may not work well for students. The student link provides information on "Citing Sources," "Evaluating Online Sources," "What Is Plagiarism?" and "Writing a Research Paper", while the teaching link provides content for "Teaching Literature through Film" and "Preventing Plagiarism."

While encyclopedia style entries in this resource are common and therefore written at a more inclusive reading level, students may be required to use literary criticism, and they will find less of it on this particular platform. For this review, a search for well known translated texts only turned up English translations of texts originally published in other languages. For example Les Miserables returned two different english translations, but none of the original french. A search for texts in other languages was not successful, but perhaps there were some items in other languages that were available and outside of the tested searches.

The platform contains images and about 1300 videos. There are also full literary works linked from the Bloom’s platform to a separate book platform. For example, the poem "Flowers of Evil" by Baudelaire had a link to the Infobase eBooks platform, and this appeared to contain an English translation of the text from Project Gutenberg. The Infobase eBooks platform has an entirely different look and feel, which is not uncommon for electronic resource providers (such as the difference between EBSCOhost and EBSCO Ebooks platforms), but nonetheless may be awkward for novice student researchers.

Relevance to CCCs

The segmentation of reference entries from criticism makes it very easy to distinguish what kind of source the student may be encountering for their assignment. Many of the works on the site are older, and while this is appropriate for many of the literary works covered by the content in this resource, even older literary texts have newly conducted research which may be relevant to the works being examined.

The sources about literary works in this database would be relevant to students getting started in English literature courses, depending on how canonical the text they are studying may be. For example, works by Shakespeare are well represented, and many reference entries and criticism are present on the platform to help students understand what they are reading. Community colleges with literature and drama programs may benefit from this resource.

Cost / affordability for CCC libraries / pricing model

Pricing for Bloom’s Literature is considerably more affordable for community college libraries than other literature databases, albeit for a smaller amount of content and breadth.

Usability: Interface/mobile responsiveness

The advanced search page doesn’t necessarily provide different ways of searching - it still provides a single box for a keyword or phrase search, but it does provide one limiter to search only one type of content in the resource, such as 'only literary works,' 'only criticism,' etc.The author search allows for narrowing results by nationality, type of writer, and death and birth dates.

As mentioned above, some links go to book sources outside of the Bloom’s platform and take users to the Infobase eBooks platform. This platform switching experience may be disorienting to a novice researcher.

Support

Both Infobase technical support and customer representatives are very attentive and quick to respond to support needs via email and by appointment.

Interoperability

LTI integration is available for Canvas. It appears there is only a database electronic collection available in Primo, meaning no portfolios can be activated for this database. For citations, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, and APA are available on the platform, and can be exported to NoodleTools and EasyBib.

Accessibility

The conformance report dated February 2022 covers to the WCAG 2.1 AA level. Captions are provided, except for silent videos where brief text descriptions are used. Headings are descriptive but may not be in the correct hierarchical order, and error identification may not be communicated by a screen reader. Some areas related to user input may not be appropriately labeled. Audio descriptions are not available on the platform. With respect to mobile devices, the platform may not have “reflow,” that is, responsiveness to different device sizes. In addition, some images may not have proper contrast. Outside of the VPAT, the entries have a “Read Aloud” tool, however, speed is not adjustable. Text is also not adjustable with a tool in the platform.

Privacy

Infobase clearly and simply states the information they collect. Of note in the policy:

“In accordance with applicable law, we may collect personal information about you from third parties, such as colleges, universities, and schools to which you are affiliated.” This appears to relate to persons who apply to work for the company, though the policy is written inclusive of many different audiences and perhaps it is applied more broadly. “Any Social Media Login Options available in our products, such as login with Google, do not transfer any user data to be collected into our systems or database.”

Cookies can be refused and the vendor says they do not sell user data to third-parties (though they may share information for legal purposes, such as “fraud, intellectual property infringement” and more). Users can opt-out of Google Analytics tracking on the site, and it is easy to see how to file California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) related requests. The policy is plainly written.

Usage

COUNTER 5 reports are available through an admin portal. Alternate statistics are also available, such as Account usage, “Usage by IP,” and “usage summary detail.” The reports are adequate for annual data survey needs. SUSHI integration is available.

Literature Reference Center Plus (EBSCO)

Content/Coverage

EBSCO’s Literary Reference Center Plus (soon to be renamed Literary Reference Plus) is a full-text database with access to thousands of critical essays and biographical articles related to both classic and contemporary works and authors. The database carries over 680 full-text literary and peer-reviewed journals with both critical and original works of fiction and poetry, as well as popular titles such as The New Yorker and Kirkus Reviews. The database also includes research guides for popular works, Masterplots, a literary glossary, and a small selection of film journals. Literary Reference Center Plus provides access to over 8000 classic novels, most of which are public domain and many of no interest to community college curriculums.

Classic and establishment writers are well-represented throughout this database. Students looking for in-depth reviews, criticisms, and works by and about contemporary authors may be disappointed as there is not as much content published on these topics in general. Reference sources provide both brief and in-depth biographical information, and critical overviews of authors and their careers. Some example searches:

• Alice Walker: 600 entries, 113 references entries, 107 criticisms, 1 poem

• Cormac McCarthy: 494 entries, 81 reference entries, 108 criticisms, 1 poem

• Nikki Giovanni: 209 entries, 18 reference entries, 15 criticisms, 14 poems

• Amanda Gorman: 22 entries, 1 reference entry, 0 criticisms, 1 poem

• A Raisin in the Sun: 122 entries, 19 reference entries, 17 criticisms

• The Hate U Give: 57 entries, 5 reference entries, 2 criticisms

Search results display with icons distinguishing different types of resources: book, periodical, review, or academic journal. There are no icons to distinguish between magazines and newspapers (both use the “periodical” icon which means little to students), and “book” is a generic term used for both short reference articles as well as longer materials. Biographical entries are mixed in with other reference material making it difficult to isolate biographical information. It is helpful that book reviews have their own distinguishing icon since the majority of articles in this database are book reviews which are usually of less interest to student researchers.

Relevance to CCCs

The database contains a majority of reviews, critical essays, and scholarly articles appropriate for community college-level English and Literature courses, as well as biographical and summary content accessible to English Language Learners (ELL) and adult language learners. This database will be of most value and interest to colleges with strong English and Literature programs.

This product is mostly marketed as a tool for public libraries and K-12 curriculums. Users also have the ability to limit searches by Lexile level, but not all content has Lexile ratings (~700K resources with Lexile rating). Almost all content is in English (99%) with Spanish as the second most represented language (less than 1%). Translation tools are available using technology powered by Google Translate (HTML articles only available for translation; not available for PDFs); 29 translation languages are available including Mandarin, Korean, Spanish, and Vietnamese.

Cost / affordability for CCC libraries / pricing model

The pricing for this database is based on FTEs, and is at the mid-range compared to other similar products in this review. A library that already subscribes to a similar literature product may not find that this database offers anything new, but it is a good option for those looking to add or expand their literary criticisms.

Although EBSCO’s Literary Reference Center Plus is the more popular choice throughout the CCCs based on a survey of current library resources, EBSCO’s Literary Reference Center (soon to be rebranded Literary Reference Source) is a smaller but similar database that provides access to a good number of titles and resources at cost up to 25% less. This reduced cost database still provides access to titles such as The New Yorker and Kirkus with 68K criticisms and essays (vs 77K in Plus), and 360 literary publications (vs 680 in Plus).

Usability: Interface/mobile responsiveness

The desktop site is browsable and easy to navigate. Users can browse highlighted collections from the home page selected by EBSCO such as “Classic Short Stories” and “Latinx writers.” Users familiar with searching any full-text database will have no problem navigating, searching, and filtering their results. Additionally, the Advanced Search options for this resource offers many features that allows users to perform specific and nuanced searches. For example, in addition to searching using familiar limits such as peer reviewed or subject, users can search for articles by literary character, literary locale, author, cultural identity, and author gender identity. Not all articles may include these classifications and distinctions, but these facets give users the tools to explore more deeply based on their interests and needs.

However, the mobile experience with EBSCO is less than optimal. The database site itself is not responsive on mobile devices, and a reduced version of the page within your chosen browser is as mobile-optimized as users get. The EBSCO app offers no option to select and search a specific database, meaning users cannot limit their searches to Literary Reference Center Plus content, and they cannot access any of the specialized advanced search features noted above.

Literary Reference Center Plus advertises itself as a full-text database, but some searches did yield non-full-text results. Based on a test search, over 90% of the content is full-text. Full-text content is either available in PDF, HTML, or both formats. Images and other visual content may not be available for publications that aren’t scanned as PDFs (e.g. cartoons from The New Yorker since it is only available as HTML).

It should be noted that EBSCO has announced changes to all search interfaces for EBSCO products including Literary Reference Center Plus (and its successor Literary Reference Plus), and the new interface for this product has not yet been shared; it cannot be said what features from this “classic” interface will be made available (such as the essential Advanced Search features noted above) when the new interface goes live later in 2024.

Support

Technical support is available via the EBSCO Connect ticketing system and by phone. The ticketing system makes it easy to track and follow issues, but requires registering for an account. The EBSCO Connect website also contains many FAQ pages that are current and up-to-date, and provide step-by-step instructions and support for common issues. This review team found that representatives are responsive, knowledgeable, and easy to contact. There may be times when a product suggestion doesn’t rise to the top of the EBSCO priority list, but representatives are willing to hear honest feedback and document said feedback.

Interoperability

EBSCO products currently support Canvas LTI 1.3. The Literary Reference Center Plus electronic collection is available for activation in Alma with linking at the article level, although some users report being consistently redirected to incorrect resources or dead ends in the database when trying to access full-text articles through Primo, which is a known issue with EBSCO items in Primo, but it’s unclear how they are working to resolve it with Ex Libris.

Citations in the database export to EndNote, EasyBib, and other major citation tools. Librarian tools include access to a “search box builder” which allows librarians to create custom search boxes for specific databases that can be embedded in HTML sites and LibGuides.

Accessibility

EBSCO’s classic user interface partially supports non-text content, meaning not all figures and images have captions and alt text, and older issues of publications are scanned without OCR. Transcripts are provided for all video media, however, few transcripts contain description beyond the spoken content. Significant accessibility issues seem to have been addressed with the upcoming new user interface (available sometime in 2024). Both the classic and new interface have WCAG accessibility conformance at the middle level (2.1 AA rating).

In the classic user interface, some PDF documents have images of text that are not readable by a screen reader, and the magazine archive content is generally in the form of a scanned image without optical content recognition (OCR). The classic interface also has issues with screen reader focus and button order, but all of the above issues reportedly have been resolved with the upcoming release of the new user interface being released sometime in late 2024.

Privacy

According to the privacy policy, EBSCO collects personally identifiable information (PII) from its users including (but not limited to) email addresses, geolocations, and education information. EBSCO also collects non-PII which “may include a unique identifier (unconnected to an individual’s Personal Information)” to track usage and trends. EBSCO’s “personalization feature” may collect additional personal information voluntarily given by users. Collected information is not sold to third parties, and users can opt out of services.

Usage

COUNTER 5 compliant reports are available, with a SUSHI authentication option. Other reports include standard usage and usage analytics in a format unique to EBSCO.

Gale Literature Resource Center

Content/Coverage

Gale Literature Resource Center (GLRC) database is the most comprehensive offering in the spectrum of Gale literary products. It is a packaging of the extensive print volumes you may remember from Reference Collections of yesteryear: Contemporary Authors, Contemporary Literary Criticism, Novels for Students, Shakespearean Criticism, Poetry Criticism, and Dictionary of Literary Biography. While GLRC appears to be comprehensive in nature, you may find that components of these reference titles may not be available completely, which is at times frustrating and confusing (for librarians and students alike).

Content is available as journal articles, book excerpts, videos, images, audio, and includes links to websites. It is transparent when the user is offered a link out to all kinds of outside sources, which are highly variable with respect to levels of quality. Almost all of the content is originally in English, and translation is offered in a number of languages.

Searches are immediately segmented into categories such as Literature Criticism, Biographies,Topic and Work Overviews, and Primary Sources & Literary Works. These categories are helpful, but not always accurate, especially for topics that have scarce resources in the first place. For instance, The Hate U Give returns 11 articles that are labeled as Literature Criticism, but only two of the eleven are actually literary criticism. This issue affects other databases as well, but Gale seems to do a worse job than other similar databases in properly categorizing sources. A student would need to further narrow their search by document type to find results that are more focused on literary criticism, and even then excerpts from novels and book reviews still show up.

Keeping that in mind, Literature Resource Center, in addition to biographies and Topic and Work Overviews, provides access to

• 23 entries of peer reviewed literary criticism for Alice Walker, with 211 items total

• 38 entries of peer reviewed literary criticism for Cormac McCarthy with 67 entries total

• 5 entries of peer reviewed literary criticism for Nikki Giovanni with 211 entries total

• 8 entries of peer reviewed literary criticism for A Raisin in the Sun, with 60 entries total

• 0 entries of peer reviewed literary criticism for Amanda Gorman, with 3 entries of criticism total

Relevance to CCCs

While the content is mostly relevant to literature students alone, the comprehension levels are all over -- the database contains biographies and interviews written at a high school level, while most criticism (especially older criticism) seems to be written with upper division students in mind. Newer criticism seems more accessible to a wider range of readers. Much like the ProQuest One Literature, an instructor could choose to use one of the prepackaged “focus areas” as a starting point for research in a class.

Cost / affordability for CCC libraries / pricing model

The depth of coverage and recency of literary works covered is extensive. Pricing is comparable to ProQuest One Literature, which is to say, quite expensive. This is puzzling, given that the content on the platform is not as comprehensive as that which appears in print. For example, where a library may have content from full volumes of Gale literature titles, according to the title list, LRC has “Selected content from Gale's award-winning Literary Criticism series” including “selections from Children's Literature Review, Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism, Literature Criticism from 1400-1800, Drama Criticism, Poetry Criticism, Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, Shakespearean Criticism, Short Story Criticism, and Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism.” (This may be similar to the lack of complete content on the Gale digital platform previously explored by former Electronic Access & Resources Committee Chair Norman Buchwald in 2016.) However, some California community college libraries believe the price is worth it when bundled with other content in the Gale Research package.

Usability: Interface/mobile responsiveness

In addition to the typical search box, the Gale Literature Resource Center (GLRC) landing page provides users with many options to browse their content, a feature often seen in Gale databases. GLRC’s “Featured Topics” areas which were relevant to college-level audiences (e.g. Literature of the Harlem Renaissance, Dystopias in Contemporary Literature). Other landing page browsing options include “Browse topics,” “Person search,” “Works Search,” but also the somewhat misleading “Title List” which redirects to a page listing all subscribed databases and corresponding owned titles in Excel format (not useful to student researchers). As noted in the section above, the platform does include links to other Gale platforms outside of the database. This may be confusing when students are assigned to source material “from a library database” only to find themselves referred out to content on the open web.

Gale’s interface is mobile-friendly and all pages, subpages, and articles are responsive on phone browsers and other devices.

GLRC is a full-text database and subscribers should have full access to all content. However, if a library is subscribing to a different Gale literature product, such as Gale Literary Criticism, users might be able to see content in GLRC that they aren’t able to fully access.

Support

Subscribers can get in contact with Gale support via phone, email, or by completing the online support form. Technical support typically responds within 24 hours. Gale Customer representatives have provided a range of responsiveness, from helpful to indirect. When asked about pricing, some vendor reps are unable to provide helpful assistance.

Interoperability

Gale products are currently Canvas LTI 1.1 certified; LTI 1.3 for Canvas is not currently available. The electronic collection is available for activation in Alma with linking at the article level. Some users noticed that not all content in the database is available when searching through Primo (since Gale only provides access to “selections” from their literary criticism volumes in this database), and this database is listed at only 39% of coverage in Ex Libris’ CDI. This may lead to errors when users click links from Primo into LRC. It seems like it may be difficult for Ex Libris to know which ‘selections’ are present within LRC. Should you wish to make one, a customizable embeddable Gale search widget is available.

Accessibility

In reading the conformance report submitted in the VPAT template as of August 2022, the report addresses WCAG 2.0 to AA and 2.1 to AA. Some items on the platform do not have alt or descriptive text. Captions, transcripts, and properly tagged headers are not guaranteed. The report includes many caveats with respect to 3rd party content. PDF scans of documents on the platform may not offer OCR text, but all scans have an accessible HTML version.

Beyond the VPAT, the platform has an embedded player for listening, but it will only read text content on the page. For example, on an image of Emily Bronte, the embedded audio player did not read any text related to the image (such as alt text). The caption below the image had information about reproduction of the image, but no information about the image.

Text entries on the platform are adjustable. While LRC is a heavily text-based database, Gale provides links to many audio items outside of the platform, and how this transition is experienced by students with auditory disabilities is important to consider.

Privacy

A privacy statement and terms of use are available. They are written plainly, but are quite lengthy. Of note, regarding data collection:

“For students, this may include your school affiliation, expected degree and graduation date, your courses of study, grades, learning style and how you engage with our products and content, and similar information that can help us tailor our content and offer you personalized instruction.”

While all of this may not apply to GLRC content (it may be related to Cengage eTextbook purchases), it is important to know.

“We collect contact and biographical data about individuals worldwide. You may provide that data directly to us, it may come from a third party (e.g. another data publisher) or from a public source such as a website, newspaper, journal, directory or public record. We may include that data in our products and services including print books, eBooks, online databases and content that is sold to third parties for inclusion in their products or services. We may also disclose your personal information to a third party if legally required to do so, or otherwise to cooperate with police investigations or other legal proceedings or to protect our rights. In those instances, the information will be provided only for that limited purpose.”

Users can adjust cookie settings using the “OneTrust” pop-up.

Usage

COUNTER 5 reporting is available and SUSHI harvesting is possible. This information is available in the administrator portal. Alternate style reports include typical ebook and journal usage, as well as usage related to location/date/time. The reports are adequate for annual data survey needs.