Library adds international web resource

By Drew Hampton, Staff Writer

On July 1, another resource was added to the Library’s collection of online research databases.

The service, called CountryWatch, is a subscription-based database that provides students, faculty and staff with detailed information and news from nations around the globe, Library Services Director Barbara King said.

Unlike the library’s other databases, which give students and faculty access to newspaper, magazine and journal articles online, King said, CountryWatch has a different focus.

“[The service] has some current events and articles,” she said, “but then it has statistical data, environmental information, economic information … just any kind of information that you would want about every country in the world.”

The site’s most notable feature, “Country Review,” allows users to select a nation from a list to display information about.

The site then displays a map of the nation, its current time, vital statistics, and a currency converter, as well as links to recent news articles about the country, King said.

Another feature is Coun-tryWatch Data, which provides tools for comparing a wide range of statistical data from one or more nations.

For example, one could compare the coal consumption and population density of Andorra and Sri Lanka over the past 10 years.

While students may find these features useful in researching topics for class, professors have access to another set of resources including country-specific lesson plans and quizzes from the site.

“It’s everything you’d ever want (to know about a country),” King said, “down to (statistics on) zinc mining production.”

King said CountryWatch is relatively inexpensive to subscribe to. The college will pay less than $2,000 per year for the service, as opposed to other databases that scale their subscription cost with the size of the college, she said.

“It’s very, very reasonable,” she said. “As we’ve grown, [some of our subscriptions] have gotten more expensive.”

King said she was skeptical at first about paying for the service since much of the information it provided could be easily found in various other sources offered at the Library, but changed her mind after an inter-office trial.

“I don’t know that I’ve seen anything that puts it all together in one place where you can access it [this easily],” she said.

To access CountryWatch, visit the Library’s website at www.occc.edu/library and click on the featured resource link.

Staff Writer Drew Hampton can be reached at StaffWriter3@occc.edu.

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