I am a total sucker for this kind of stuff.
This week is National Library Week [1] for our American friends.
Many commercial database vendors and aggregators are marking the occasion by providing temporary free access to their products.
For example:
- Greenwood Publishing [2] is providing free access to database products as diverse as Praeger Security International Online, Reader’s Advisor Online and ARBAOnline (thousand of reviews of reference works). You have to register first [3].
- Gale [4] is allowing free access to a long list of popular and academic collections like Literature Criticism Online, Science Resource Center, and the Gale Virtual Reference Library (more than 1,700 e-books from major scientific and humanities publishers)
Now, here is an easy trick to have year-round free access to many high-quality database collections outside the legal field: get a local public library card.
Here, in Ottawa, the public library system provides members remote access via their library card number to dozens of databases [5] across a whole range of interest areas. The same is true of most other large public library networks in Canada. If your library can’t afford to license Dialog or other very expensive non-legal academic databases, it is well worth the trouble getting that library card for those occasions when you have to venture outside the parameters of traditional legal research.