The Arkansas State Library has more than 130 databases available for use, on a range of subjects from agriculture to military history to education and business. Over the next few weeks I will be highlighting some of the newer databases. All of the databases are available for use in the library, and many are available to state employees at home or work through remote access. For more information about the database policies or to apply for access, visit the circulation page of our website.
The first database I want to share is the Culinary Arts Collection. According to the description on the database home page "The Culinary Arts Collection includes 250 major cooking and nutrition magazines as well as reference content from Delmar, Cengage Learning. Coverage includes thousands of searchable recipes, restaurant reviews, and industry information."
What does this mean for you? It means you can get recipes and other articles from such popular magazine as Real Simple, Redbook, Good Housekeeping and Natural Health, as well as research from scholarly journals, and food industry information from industry-specific magazines. For example, a search for "carrot cake" turns up 104 magazine articles and 6 news items. A search for "diabetes" returns 1970 magazine articles, 681 academic journal articles, 2 books, and 5661 news items. These results can then be narrowed down, depending on what you are looking for. You can also search specifically by publication, using the "Browse Publications" list. Many of the publications have articles available in full text, meaning that you do not have to go find the print copy.
To try this and other databases, start at the database page on our website. For questions, please use the Ask a Librarian form on our website.
