ProQuest's Graduate Education Program (GEP) – a powerful, free database and software package for LIS educators and students worldwide

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to highlight the main features of the components of Proquest's giga database package for LIS faculty and students of databases and software services. These allow complimentary access to hundreds of indexing/abstracting, directory and full-text databases, to RefWorks, the most sophisticated reference management program, and to SUMMON, a powerful digital resource discovery program. Design/methodology/approach -This phase of the research focused on evaluating the largest module of GEP which offers 41 databases with more than 200 million records (half of them full-text documents), on the new ProQuest software platform. The paper presents the major content and software features of this module. Findings -The single module, GEP-41, is an important contribution to LIS education, providing free access to LIS faculty and librarians to so many databases covering the LIS and LIS-related fields, including the new ProQuest Library and Information Science database with more than 1.2 million items. The other modules of GEP extend the coverage to databases appropriate to LIS faculty and students interested in various tracks of librarianship. This project certainly will benefit Proquest itself in the long run. From the perspective of the primary beneficiaries, the LIS professors and students, the rich infrastructure for this project offers unprecedented opportunities for a digital renaissance in every aspect of LIS education and research. Originality/value -This service, highly relevant for LIS education worldwide, was released in late 2012, and research papers have not been published about it yet. The paper focuses on the measurable, quantitative traits of the largest component of the service.