Gale Database Enhancements & Name Changes

[jdessino]

Gale said they'd sent out announcements about database enhancements, including name changes, over the summer with an announcement at the end of August stating that some changes were taking effect on 9/13/2019, but I missed them.  In case you did, too, the following name changes effect all of us:

Gale Virtual Reference Library is not Gale eBooks

All of the databases that were <Subject> in Context are now Gale in Context: <Subject>  In other words, Opposing Viewpoints in Context is now Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, Ditto for Science. If you subscribe to other Gale databases, they've probably changed names, too. We aren't going to change all the names in our A-Z list except GVRL, but I am going to add an 'Alternative name' entry to their entry and add a single Gale In Context entry with some kind of note.

If you missed this, too, here is the link to the Gale enhancements home page, https://www.gale.com/product-enhancements, and here is the link to the list of database name changes with timeline: https://support.gale.com/product-enhancements

[jcarrell]

Thanks for sending this link out!  We totally missed the notices too (if they were indeed sent out), and we just noticed yesterday that GVRL had changed its name to Gale eBooks.  Not my preference (it's less descriptive than "virtual reference library"), but we'll get used to it.  That said, has anyone played around with the searching in Gale eBooks?  There's a "Basic Search" and an "Advanced: Keyword" search and they're doing different things.  Was it always like this?  I've got a ticket in with Gale to find out the difference.  We're thinking the search algorithms changed too.  It used to be better at interpreting the query.  For example, inputting "dogs" (without quotes) into the default Basic Search gives me 12000 results and the top results aren't helpful.  Input "dogs" into the Advanced: Keyword and I get 1000 results and the ranking looks better.  If you do a more exact term like "photography", both are fine (even if the results are different).  It's almost like the "fuzzy matching" is worse in the new interface.

Is this just us???  I didn't pay much attention to how the previous interface was configured, but the searching seems off somehow...

[jcarrell]

I just heard back from Gale this morning on the difference between Basic Search and Advanced: Keyword search.  Here's what they said:

“Basic Search” performs a full-text keyword and ranked multi-index search. The broader set of indices have been selected and ‘tuned’ to the content of the database. These indices include elements of the content such as article title, assigned subject terms, and currency.

The “Keyword Search” under the Advanced Search provides results where the exact search term appears within the article title or first 200 words of the article. If the search term is farther in the article it would not be returned in results list.

[jdessino]

Thanks for getting the clarification about the searching! I highlighted the name change in my post, but there are lots of database 'enhancements' happening as well. the 'In Context' interface was also changed with the recent update. I haven't had a chance to look at them yet.

[dgray]

I have a question about Gale OneFile: Business. When you use the old InfoTrac linker (http://library.vccs.edu/license-bin/linker.plx?gale) you see a list of all Gale databases available to LFCC and OneFile Business shows up on the list, but I can't find it when I do a linker lookup. I've searched under Gale, OneFile, and Business.

Is this a database we have access to or not? And if so, how do I get the linker?

Thanks.