Many people are interested in the question of whether immigrants are a boon to - or a drain on - the economy. One of our local NPR stations, KPCC 89.3 FM, devoted an entire week in June last year to this topic. Go to http://www.scpr.org/news/features/2005/06/illegalimmigrants.html to listen to the discussions and special reports.

ProQuest Asian Business

275 titles - mostly full-text

This is another of the databases included in ProQuest. It offers detailed information on companies, economies, markets, and overall business conditions throughout the Eastern Hemisphere. A great deal of information on international trade is available as well.

• News and current awareness sources
  • Frequently updated full-text coverage of political, social, economic, cultural, financial, and business news stories at national and regional levels from key newspapers, magazines, and journals
• Country information and statistics
  • Political, economic, social, and business profiles; guides and outlooks; core national and regional statistics; frequently updated economic, financial, and demographic series and analysis
• People and institutions
  • Organizational, directory, and biographical information for national government, the civil service, and business and cultural organizations.
• Policy and analysis
  • National and regional level full-text archive of white papers, government documents, journals, and legislation, complete with selected topic analysis.

This week we will be highlighting the various databases contained within our subscription to ProQuest. Most of us probably think of ProQuest (and use it) as a monolithic database, but it is actually composed of many databases, and even individual "modules" within certain databases.

Selecting a database to search (instead of the default - which is all of them at once) can reduce the time you spend waiting for results to load, as well as target your search to the most relevant sources. It takes a couple of extra steps at the front end, but try it out!

When you arrive at the ProQuest search box page, look in the upper left-hand corner. You'll notice that it is set to search multiple databases. You can change that by clicking on the Database selection link.

Here you can scroll down to select the individual databases that are available.

There are also two 'special' databases that need to be searched individually at all times (they are not included automatically in the default setting).

They are: ERIC Plus Text and PsycINFO.

ERIC Plus Text

What is included:
ERIC PlusText incorporates full-text journals from ProQuest Education Journals™. It is the world's most widely used index to educational related literature. Established in 1966, ERIC is supported by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement and is administered by the U.S. National Library of Education (NLE). ERIC is the largest education database in the world—containing over one million records of journal articles, research reports, curriculum and teaching guides, conference papers, and books.

Topics included range from Adult Education to Teaching with Technology and everything in between. The database contains records from 1994 to the present.

When would you use it?
If you are writing a paper on, for instance, home schooling or bilingual education or multiple intelligences - practically anything education-related - this is a great resource. Many of the entries are abstracts only (not the full text of the document), but speak to the librarians if you see something you'd like to obtain in full text.

ERIC is useful for Child Development/Education courses, English courses, Psychology courses, & Sociology courses.

For anyone doing a paper on Disasters or Disaster Relief Organizations, please see the collection of resources in the February 2006 issue of College & Research Libraries News. Normally restricted to members only (we do subscribe to the paper edition), this article is free and open to the public.