Major Database Changes: MLA, PsycInfo, and RILM

What will change?

Starting July 1, 2007 three of our databases (MLA International Bibliography, PsycInfo, and RILM) will move to the CSA Illumina platform from FirstSearch. This means these databases will look and search a little differently, but the content remains the same.

Why is this happening?

The Kalamazoo College Library subscribes to these three databases through the Michigan Library Consortium (MLC), which negotiates licensing and price. This year the price of the FirstSearch platform to these databases was significantly higher than for CSA Illumina, so MLC will be licensing them through CSA. In an effort to maintain our current FirstSearch platform, Kalamazoo College Librarians investigated the cost of keeping these databases with FirstSearch, but the 69% increase in subscription price over last year's price made the CSA platform the only affordable option.

How will CSA Illumina be different?

The Kalamazoo College already subscribes to three databases on the CSA Illumina platform: Philosopher's Index, PAIS, and BioOne Abstracts and Indexes (linked from the Kalamazoo College Library website at http://www.kzoo.edu/is/library/databases.html). You can try out these databases to see how MLA, PsycInfo, and RILM will work when they move to CSA Illumina. Both database platform has pros and cons.

CSA offers an online tutorial on how to use their advanced search here:

http://www.csa.com/tutorials/advsearch.html

If you have any questions about this change or how to use CSA Illumina, please contact Reference at 337-7152 or reference@kzoo.edu.