9 minute read
by Elisabeth Leekley
doi:10.5260/chara.22.2.48 Date of Review: September 4, 2020
Composite Score: HH 7/8
Reviewed by:
Elisabeth Leekley Information Management Consultant for UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) <eleekley@gmail.com>
Abstract Public Health: Global Origins of Modern Health Policy and Management, 1957-1995 from Readex is a sub-collection of Readex’s Joint Publication Research Services (JPRS) Reports, 1957-1995 which created reports for the U.S. government from translations of unclassified news, radio bulletins, journals, and reports from foreign countries and international agencies. The department responsible for these reports shifted during the years of 1957 to 1995, which also shifted the focus of these reports from Cold War interests to a more comprehensive global overview. Public Health: Global Origins of Modern Health Policy and Management, 1957-1995 contains health-related topics pulled from the larger collection of reports. Limited indexing and sorting features possibly obscure what might be rare translations from the Cold War era.
Pricing Public Health: Global Origins of Modern Health Policy and Management, 1957-1995 is available via a range of purchase models. Pricing is based on multiple factors. Purchase models include perpetual license, rent-to-own, and subscription. Contact your Readex representative for pricing by calling (800) 762-8182 or by e-mail at <sales@ readex.com>.
Overview Public Health: Global Origins of Modern Health Policy and Management, 1957-1995 from Readex is a sub-collection of Readex’s Joint Publication Research Services (JPRS) Reports 1957-1995, which created reports for the U.S. government from translations of unclassified news, radio bulletins, journals, and reports from foreign countries and international agencies. The department responsible for these reports shifted during the years of 1957 to 1995, which also shifted the focus of these reports from Cold War interests to a more comprehensive global overview. Public Health: Global Origins of Modern Health Policy and Management, 1957-1995 contains health related topics pulled from the larger collection of reports.
User Interface It’s unclear what metadata is indexed. The Advanced Search includes the search fields All Text, Full Text, Article Title, Article Date, Language, Source, Citation Text, and Author. Source is often whatever was translated or the report by the JPRS, which results in an unclear definition of resource. For instance, newspaper titles often incorporate city names or reports are titled by government departments, so a researcher must investigate historical geography to further identify what is referenced. There is no explanation for Citation Text. The only options for sorting search results are Best, Newest, and Oldest. The records themselves include the following metadata fields: Database, which is always Joint Publications Research Service Reports (JPRS); Date, meaning the date published in JPRS; Published in, which is unclear; and Source, which is also unclear. Original Date refers to the date of the source translated or summarized for the JPRS report. Author appears to reflect the responsible person or entity for the report and not the translator.
There is no explanation or example available for searching by Date, such as what format to use; though dates are written in American style (e.g., August 15, 2020). Search results will display the JPRS publication date, but if a researcher opens the View Details of a bibliography record, the original source’s publication date is revealed, as well as the number of pages in the record.
The original JPRS reports are only found in microform at very few libraries, so the records are scans of typewriter pages, sometimes with editing marks, and the view of records is limited to paragraph lengths or partial pages, depending on the use of the zoom feature. The zoom and viewing features include a Help option, and there is no other such assistance built into the database. The only way to navigate a document is to page through. The viewing and navigation options are similar to a microfilm machine experience. The options to print, download, and e-mail include only the bibliographic details of the record and a hyperlink back to the database record.
The home page includes a chart of Suggested Searches, which are broader topic terms linked to coded Boolean searches. For instance, under Social Aspects is a list of subtopics that include Health Education. Following this link, the search results display a query of “health education” NOT “welfare.” Rural healthcare, also a subtopic of Social Aspects, is linked to the search combination of “rural medical” OR “rural health” OR “(rural NEAR35 (doctor OR medical OR health OR clinic OR nurse)).” A researcher could take cues from these preloaded searches to discern the best search strategy.
How to use this Database, which is linked from the home page, shows previews of the records with very basic searches but only contains a table of advice for search strategies, including “Find a focused result set,” “Find articles on an event as it unfolds,” and “Find a person” due to transliteration issues. This table does not demonstrate its recommended searches.
Critical Evaluation Public Health: Global Origins of Modern Health Policy and Management, 1957-1995 originates from microform of typewritten documents and attempts to recreate the retro experience with its viewing design. This is possibly unintended; however, the original documents were published in print and microform, and thus most likely lacked in-depth indexing. The presentation of this database is misleading.
and Management Review Scores Composite: HH 7/8
The maximum number of stars in each category is 5. Content: HHH The potential for discovering translations of newspapers and other sources from the time period is very interesting, but the misleading presentation by the vendor makes it difficult to confirm. The advantage of this database should be the ease of proving what value the content is, but poor usability obscures this.
User Interface/Searchability: HH Lack of clarity regarding indexing and thus search capability, in addition to lack of sorting options, plus the cumbersome viewing setup, results in a low rating.
Pricing: N/A
Purchase/Contract Options: HHH 1/2 Standard contract options, though the lack of MARC records is a disadvantage.
There is an emphasis on primary documents and the intentional tracking of public health policy over time in its How to Use this Database document, but upon further investigation, the contents are a sub-collection of the larger database, Joint Publications Research Service (JPRS) Reports, 1957-1995. The explanation of JPRS illuminates the Cold War focus of documents, which could be inferred from the date ranges of the databases’ titles. Also misleading is the title of the database itself. The database home page is titled, Public Health: Global Origins of Modern Health Policy and Management, 1957-1995, with subtitle “Journal articles and reports covering modern Public Health policies during the second half of the 20th century,” but on the product advertisement page of Readex, the title is Public Health: Global Origins of Modern Health Policy and Management, 1957-1995, Global Perspectives from the CIA Archives.
The bigger issue is that the design of the database overlooks the ability to filter or sort by nation, region, city, gender, or age groups, yet the emphasis in promotional material is a global perspective on public health. This is not a database for novice users, though the vendor emphasizes its preloaded searches on the home page as an advantage to undergraduate students. A possible advantage of this offering is its translated content and limited access beyond this database, since the original JPRS reports are only available at a few libraries in microform. However, the limited indexing and sorting features possibly obscure what might be rare translations of international publications and media from the Cold War era. This results in a recommendation for advanced, graduate-level researchers with a specific need for geo-political historical material, but institutions should consider trialing both the Public Health and the JPRS databases simultaneously to see which best suits potential user needs.
Competitive Products Global Health Archive from EBSCO offers abstracts of out-of-print journals from 1910-1983; and Global Health, also from EBSCO, offers indexing of journals from 1973. EMBASE from Elsevier is a biomedical bibliographic database that goes back as far as 1947. These databases appear to focus their content scopes on academic publications rather than government or news reports. Purchase Contract Readex is compliant with WCAG AA standards.
Archiving or ongoing availability is made possible should Readex go out of business. Interlibrary Loan is allowed in accordance with CONTU guidelines. COUNTER compliant use statistics are available. MARC records are not available for this specific collection from Readex. There is no limit on the number of institutional users; remote access is limited to authorized users. Text and data mining rights can be secured through the execution of an additional license agreement.
Authentication All Readex databases support authentication via IP address, student/ library barcode (with patterned IDs), referring URL, user ID with password, and embedded ID, in addition to cookie, OpenAthens, Shibboleth, and HTTPS authentication.
Author’s References Benoit, B. (2020). “White Plague, Black Death: Public Health as a Weapon in South Africa and the USSR, Readex Blog.” Readex. <https://www.readex.com/blog/white-plague-black-death-publichealth-weapon-south-africa-and-ussr>
Contact Information
Readex, a Division of NewsBank
5801 Pelican Bay Boulevard, Suite 600 Naples, FL 34108-2734 Phone: (800) 762-8182 E-mail: <sales@readex.com> Producer URL: <https://www.readex.com/> Product URL: <https://www.readex.com/products/publichealth-global-origins-modern-health-policy-andmanagement-1957-1995>
Freetext Keywords: history | political science | public health | translation | government reports | Cold War
Primary Category: History & Area Studies
Secondary Categories: Government Information; History & Area Studies; Medicine, Nursing & Health; Multidisciplinary (or interdisciplinary); Political Science & Law
Review Type(s): Newspaper or news source, Primary source digital content, Reports, Other
Target Audience: Graduate/Faculty/Researcher
Access Type(s): Subscription
FAQS, Joint Publications Research Service (JPRS) Reports, 19571995. “Rare insight into geo-politics, global threats, foreign intelli-
OVER 800 REVIEWS NOW INCLUDED
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gence and more.” (n.d.) Readex. <https://www.readex.com/products/ joint-publications-research-service-jprs-reports-1957-1995#faqs>
Public Health: Global Origins of Modern Health Policy and Management, 1957-1995: “How to Use this Database.” (2020). Public Health: Global Origins of Modern Health Policy and Management, 19571995. <https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/readex/product-help/topph?p=TOPPH>
About the Author
Elisabeth Leekley is an information management consultant for the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. Previously, she was the instruction librarian at Pine Manor College and the Vanuatu campus library of The University of the South Pacific. She has experience in community college libraries and the public library, and she earned a Master of Arts in Library and Information Sci-
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