The World Academic Database, 1997/98 CD‐ROM contains verified information on almost 12,000 higher education institutions and academic bodies world‐wide. It incorporates three separate databases the International Handbook of Universities (now in its 14th edition), the World List of Universities and other Institutions (now in its 21st edition), and The Macmillan Grants Register, and additional material contributed by TRACE (the Higher Education Network) an international information‐sharing consortium. These three are well‐known publications, widely used in text form.
The searchability of all this material is potentially enhanced by presenting it together on a CD‐ROM disc and by incorporating an electronic search tool. The databases are searched separately; but some underlined words are linked by hypertext. Searches are made on a series of screens, and words with characteristics such as country, institution, courses, etc can be combined. One entry line on all such screens provides also for free‐text entries. Every entry line has a scrolling index of the words available for choice; and it is advisable to use this because “expected” words are not always there.
The search tool is up‐to‐date and so it can be used with full Boolean powers and proximity facilities. It gives the user considerable power to pinpoint accurately specific topics and eliminate all irrelevancies. In fact, however, it is found in practice that combination of more than two or three simple keywords will often result in nothing at all being found. This is because the academic institutions which contributed the material in the first place have not used a standard format, or the same descriptive words as each other; and some have not given sufficiently detailed information, failing to recognize that they are thereby missing a great opportunity to advertise their services to potential students. Further, they have manipulated the names of some subjects to make them seem to have greater academic content, adding to the confusion and lack of retrieval. By entering the term “librarianship” for example, a student would discover that it is taught in only two institutions in the U.K. and one in the U.S.! Presumably all the rest disguise the topic as branches of communication or information‐handling, or hide it under business and arts degrees. But would a potential student be able to find all possible courses?
In general, although the “World Academic Database is a vast storehouse of facts and there is no other academic tool so broadly based, it is not easy to extract full course information from it . Inspired full‐text forays are often the best tool to try; but these are necessarily chancy. However, once material is found, all customary facilities are available on the disc for downloading or printing out, selectively or fully.
