How do I choose an electronic collection from the Community Zone?
There are so many electronic collections in the Community Zone (CZ) that it can be difficult to choose one. Here are some tips:
General Tips
- Use the facets to narrow down the list! "Interface Name" is especially helpful to find the right platform.
- Don't use a collection with the words "open" or "free" in the name if you're paying for access.
- Ignore collections with any of the following in their names:
- Bacon (these are for customers of the BAse de COnnaissance Nationale service)
- CRKN (these are for customers of the Canadian Research Knowledge Network)
- DFG (these are for customers of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft)
- EZB (these are for customers of the Elektronische Zeitschriftenbibliothek service)
- KB+ or KB+ Jisc (these are for customers of the Jisc service)
- Scholars Portal (these are for members of the Ontario Council of University Libraries)
- TAEBDC (these are for members of the Taiwan Academic E-Book & Database Consortium)
- Try exporting the list. It's faster to scroll through an Excel spreadsheet than to page through 20 results at a time.
- Look at the "Usage Reflection" numbers. These indicate how many institutions in certain regions have activated a collection. The most popular may be the best option.
Databases or Packages
- If you've ordered or subscribed to a specific package, look for that.
- If you subscribe to Emerald Library Studies eJournal Collection, activate that instead of a more general Emerald package.
- If you purchased a backfile collection, activate a collection that is specifically labeled as backfiles.
- If the vendor has given you a title list, you can use the "Look Up Titles" feature in the Overlap and Collection Analysis tool to upload the list to Alma and compare it to Community Zone electronic collections.
- You can ask the vendor which collection matches your holdings.
Individual Titles
- First, do a search for the title in the Community Zone. This will narrow down the list considerably, because it only shows electronic collections that have this title.
- Look for a blue house icon next to the collection name. This means that a different title has already been activated in this collection. You may wish to activate the title in the same collection so you don't have to manage multiple collections.
- Look for the broadest, most generic collection available for the provider. This will increase the likelihood that you will be able to use this collection for other titles in the future. Examples of such collections:
- Cambridge Core All Books
- Taylor & Francis Journals Complete
- If you can't find the title in a collection for the provider, it may be in a more general electronic collection such as:
- Miscellaneous Ejournals
- Miscellaneous eBooks
- Single Journals
- Click Linking Information to check the URL.
