Media Review Digest provides comprehensive review coverage of both educational and entertainment media as well as serving as a standard catalog of media information. While the digest has been published in print since 1970, the database via the Web includes coverage from 1989 to the present. It includes more than 300,000 “reviews,” evaluations, awards, and prizes for approximately 80,000 media resources. Approximately 20,000 citations from more than 150 reviewing sources and organizations that present awards are uploaded to the database yearly. Additionally, starting with 1996, the records tagged with the descriptor “Web links” include hypertext links to reviews that are available via the Internet.
Media forms covered include the following: educational and feature films; videocassettes and videodiscs; educational and spoken‐word records, tapes and compact discs; CD‐ROMs and other optical media; as well as slides, transparencies, kits, maps, anatomical models, games and other miscellaneous media. Pierian Press offers Media Review Digest in print or as a database, with access available via IP authentication or username/ password after purchase of an annual subscription. In addition, several other vendors offer electronic versions of this database, namely Auto‐Graphics, Inc., Brodart Information, and Gateway Library Management Systems, Inc.
The introductory screen for Media Review Digest assumes a simple search selection, with a pull‐down arrow with “browse” and “advanced search” as options. Based on the desired method of searching, the user then selects which field(s) to choose prior to entering the search statement. Options vary according to the type of search selected, with subjects, titles, authors and reviewers being standard features. Unlike simple and advanced search modes where the user enters a specific search, “browse” provides an alphabetical listing of all database entries in a given field and includes the number of records for the selected entry. Once the desired term is identified, a simple click of the mouse will bring the user to the selected database records.
There is a single record for each bibliographic item, and where indicated, multiple review sources are attached to this record. This allows for new reviews of items to be added to a record over time and keeps reviews for the same item together in one place, allowing for an overall consensus of opinion concerning a particular item. Records generally include title, producer as a hypertext link, date, media type, price if known, cumulative rating with a link to an explanation of the rating, grade level, a very brief summary, subject headings which are hypertext links, and applicable “reviews,” awards, and prizes.
“Reviews” are simply bibliographic citations for each review source, a descriptor (which indicates if the actual review is descriptive rather than evaluative), and a hypertext link for the reviewer’s name. While the database has the capability of linking the media item being reviewed to a user’s local catalog, there is no mechanism for linking the review source to the local catalog. This means that a user, upon completion of the database search, must then conduct a search of the local catalog to determine if the publication containing the review is available at the local library. This step is complicated by the fact that Media Review Digest has no mechanism for marking/printing or e‐mailing selected records. The user is at the mercy of the browser print function, and each record must be printed individually. Hopefully Pierian Press will address this issue in future releases of the database. Only those records which contain “Web links” lead the user to the full text of the review with little added effort. Note, however, that once an Internet site is accessed via a “Web link,” the user is no longer in the database and must redo a search if he or she wishes to continue research within Media Review Digest.
Navigation within the search results is somewhat sketchy, as the function keys do not perform as expected. In a separate frame, below the selected record or record set, there are multiple buttons for navigation within the search results. New and Revise operate as expected, but when using First, Previous, Next or Last, the results often appear erratic. One reason for this is that these functions can apply equally to “records” or “record sets,” and with all of the possible hypertext linking within records, it’s easy to lose track of what’s being navigated. There are three added buttons for navigating within search result sets which are also problematic: these are Current, Prior, and Initial. On the surface it seems that these would be useful functions for manipulating search result sets, but since the database is unable to distinguish between current, prior and initial search sets, the buttons are useless. For example, a search for “china” in the title field resulted in 164 hits, and revising the search by adding “geography” to the search statement resulted in one hit. An attempt to return to the search result set of 164 records for “china” by clicking on the Prior search result sets button resulted in the appearance of a pop‐up note stating “you are viewing the requested Record Set.” The only options for returning to the original search result are either to use the Back button on the browser until the original search set reappears ‐ or to redo the search.
A recently introduced feature, MediaList is a self‐contained monthly selection magazine contained within Media Review Digest. By accessing the monthly edition of MediaList, a user can identify all the videos, CD‐ROMs, DVDs, etc., that have been entered into the database for the first time that month. Tables of contents of back issues can be retrieved, and each issue or combined table of contents for the entire year can be filtered by quality level, audience level, media type, or subject.
Clearly, Media Review Digest is an important tool for all involved in the identification and selection of media items. There are glitches in the program, but as the database is still in the development stage, there is hope that many of the problems will be addressed and resolved in the near future. Since there are few review sources devoted strictly to media, this is a unique product with tremendous potential. Pierian Press has a good product that with some improvements could be great.
