About 19,000 records are searchable from 1990 onwards. The next step was to develop an evaluation questionnaire that allowed us to compare the different characteristics and features of the databases. We put special emphasis on the search techniques and not on the resulting numbers of each of these important databases - because you cannot compare such heterogenous databases with different time spans, thematic focuses, and number of records. In regard to database type, they all are catalogs, meaning that every bibliographic citation includes the location and the call number, so a researcher knows where to find the document in the institution maintaining the database. In each of the four cases the quality of the records shows that professional librarians have developed the cataloging criteria.
All databases work with specially developed feminist thesauri or descriptor lists.
Major changes have occured in recent months, however. The language that could be understood by most Web users is most likely English. Offering parallel English versions of the descriptors is the only way databases can be made open and user-friendly to the worldwide public of interested women and men. One can find short titles and full citations in every database. The presentation quality of the citations is generally clear and provides the most important elements that allow for easy identification of the document.