GreenFILE is a freely available research database offered by EBSCO and follows the same basic format and style of EBSCO's other databases. According to the description on the EBSCO website, GreenFILE draws from over 600 titles and covers “all aspects of human impact to the environment… [including] global climate change, green building, pollution, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, recycling”. The total number of records is 384,000 with 4,700 of those from open access journals (http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/selectdb?vid=2&hid=104&sid=af0ca107‐512a‐4a98‐9727‐95480fbf0d24%40sessionmgr7.)
The list of titles covered by GreenFILE can be found by clicking on Choose Databases from the GreenFILE homepage, selecting GreenFILE from the list and clicking Detailed View. It is not immediately evident from the list how many of the titles are peer‐reviewed. I randomly selected ten and only found one peer‐reviewed journal. However, elsewhere the search options do allow results to be limited to peer‐reviewed material thus providing users a way to evaluate the quality of records returned.
Little advice is given on the GreenFILE homepage on how to search it effectively and those new to EBSCO databases may struggle initially. EBSCO does have a support website with a range of tutorials explaining how to use their databases. Anyone intending to use GreenFILE is advised to look at the EBSCO tutorial Introduction to EBSCOHost 2.0, before starting. Within the basic search, results can be limited to peer‐reviewed journals, as already mentioned, but also to those records linking to full‐text, to specific publication types, as well as by date, etc. The advanced search allows you to search within specific fields, for example author, title, publication name, as well as providing additional ways to limit results.
The results page offers users all the features typically associated with an academic database such as the ability to sort, save or share selected records. Where records link to the full‐text a PDF link is clearly visible. The advanced search options are welcome but do come at a cost in visual terms with the results interface being very busy and somewhat clinical.
A simple search for “global warming” returned over 6,000 records from a variety of sources such as newspapers and popular magazines as well as academic journals. This may lead to confusion among inexperienced users if they assume that, as GreenFILE is provided by an academic database provider, then all the records returned by it will be of academic quality which they are not. According to the official description of GreenFILE approximately 1.5 per cent of the records covered come from open access journals and so for these records the full‐text is freely available to all. The total number of open access journals globally stands at over 4,000 journals (www.doaj.org/). Given that only 1.5 per cent of GreenFILE records come from open access journals and that in total GreenFILE only draws from 600 titles, there is much scope for EBSCO to increase both the total number of records searched as well as the numbers which link to full‐text. It is likely that some of those using GreenFILE will not be affiliated with an academic library and so not have access to subscription‐based journals. For a freely available research database it would be useful to see a higher number of records in GreenFILE giving access to the full‐text of articles.
GreenFILE benefits greatly from EBSCO's excellent search features and design. It would be good to see the content increased and particularly more access to the full‐text of records, but in fairness to EBSCO they are providing this service for free. In conclusion, GreenFILE will be a worthy addition to the online resources of any library and will be of value to a wide range of users including researchers, students and the general public.
