Oxford Reference Online

What Harner Says: This online database offers a variety of Oxford University Press reference books to those who access it. The interface is well-designed, and offers two ways to search: quick or advanced. Results can be e-mailed.

The Reality: As many have noted throughout our presentations, Harner’s guide is not the most up to date resource. His entry for ORO was dated some six years ago, and the information, the little he gives, is current. His annotation for the database is incredibly brief, perhaps wanting the reader to refer directly to the direct annotations for specific Oxford Reference works.

About Oxford Reference Online: The database is maintained by Oxford University Press, and offers easy access to “the world’s most trusted reference collection.” It is also updated 3 times a year with new titles and new editions. The database offers a user easy access to:

                Basic Website Format: One menu follows the user throughout most of the website. It is the red menu at the top of the page. This menu offers the user easy access to: the Home page, Advanced Search, Subject & Book index, Timelines, Browse, Links, to Log Out, and Help.
The Home Page: What the user comes to first. This page is organized with informational links on the far left, such as a quick link to Subjects & Books, assistance for a New User, and the ability to Log Out. The middle column offers quick access to a specific reference book. At the far right is a useful “Fact of the Day,” which users can have e-mailed to them. The most useful section of this page is the “Quick Search” option. The Quick Search option also follows the user around the full website in the top right corner.
Advanced Search: This is the meat and potatoes search. Searching here allows for Boolean terms, which will only confuse the Quick Search tool. A user to able to refine their search to specifically Full Text searches, Entry Headings, People, or Dates. Specific subjects can be searched to limit data. On the right have side are further Search level limiters, Standard, Boolean, and Pattern.
Timelines: Allows one to look at, and search, a specific timeline. They are initially sorted by Themes and Counties, but go into higher levels of specificity the deeper one goes into search options.
Browse: The browse option allows one to do just that: browse the entire OUP reference book catalogue.
Links: Provides links to external website for specific books included in the subscription to ORO.
Log Out: Quickly logs the user out of the subscription.
Help: As one may expect, the Help Page for ORO is immense. It provides general assistance to finding information throughout its many different formats of searches. A nice feature is that the Help page is ‘smart.’ What I mean by this is that if one clicks on the Help button, the page automatically directs to that page’s Help page.

Search Pages: Searching in either Quick or Advanced takes the user to a search page. Here, a user can re-order results by category (usually Subject reference: longer entries, Subject reference: shorter entries, English dictionaries & reference, Quotations, and Maps and Illustrations). The tabs near the top of the page allow the researcher to do this. On the far left, a researcher may “reorder these results alphabetically,” which means alphabetically according to ORO’s entries, proper names first (results are usually listed by relevance). A search can also be refined by subject (which lists the number of results in a specific subject), and results per page can be changed. In the middle of the page are the results of the search. At the top of the results is the Quick Definition, or what ORO best believes that search was meant to conduct. Results can be printed, and as Harner notes, e-mailed. The deeper one goes into a search, the more specialized the search becomes.

Access and Manipulation: Like many other online databases, ORO requires a subscription. UL does have a subscription, but does not provide access through its library website. Therefore, this database is seemingly only available when one is utilizing UL’s web server. As Harner states, the website is very user friendly.

Trial Searches:
Dickens – I’d like to find out information about Charles Dickens. I merely type in the name ‘Dickens’ into the Quick Search engine on the home page. I receive 95 results, with the Quick Definition being not the author, but the definition of a noun. The top other results also deal with the term dickens as a noun, but the fourth entry is my author. I’ve also just found out the Oxford publishes The Oxford Reader’s Companion to Dickens, something that might be useful. Clicking this link provides information about the reference book, and allows me to search specifically within ONLY this book.

Gothic Literature AND Fairy Tales – Using simply the Quick Search provides me with one entry, which strikes me as perhaps slightly off base. Utilizing the Advanced Search, provides 28 entries, 26 for Literature and 2 for history. Although they may not be entirely relevant, I am provided at least with specific authors that I may want to work with.

I am writing a paper and I’d like to name drop someone outside of literature. I can go to Advanced Search, clear all the fields, and select only Quotations and Religion & Philosophy. My paper is about reading and books, so I type ‘reading’ into the search field. I come up with 972 results, most of which aren’t pertinent to what I am looking for. I can limit the field to just quotes at the left, giving me 180 now to work with. Most of the top entries are literature writers, but I can limit my search further at left. The B.F. Skinner quote interests me, so I can click on him to find out a little about him, and other quotes by him, and how they are categorized. I am also provided with a citation.

Other notes: