Every two years NC-LIVE renegotiates its contracts with its various database providers. As part of this process, the NC-LIVE committee elicits input from its member libraries. Beginning December 31, 2005, NC-LIVE will be offering a new suite of online databases.

While most of the databases that NC-LIVE offered in the past will still be available, some new titles (such as Britannica Online) have been added. In other cases, existing databases have been significantly upgraded. For instance Academic Search Elite--which included over 3,200 peer-reviewed journals--has been upgraded to Academic Search Premier with over 6,800 peer-reviewed articles.

In order to add and upgrade these databases, some had to be dropped. In many cases this move actually enhances research. For instance, Expanded Academic Index ASAP has been dropped, but this database greatly overlapped Academic Search Elite and has less coverage than Academic Search Premier. The net result is that researchers now require few steps to obtain the information they need. In a very few cases, databases were dropped that had no good equivalent in the line up, and the library is striving to meet any shortfall that may result from this move on its own.

A full list of the changed to NC-LIVE databases can be found at http://www.nclive.org/changes_2005.phtml. This includes new databases, dropped databases and suggested substitutions for the dropped databases. Overall, the changes to the NC-LIVE stable of databases is most welcome and the library staff is confident that the new offerings will enhance research at Wingate.

Updated August 14, 2008