They range from interdisciplinary sources such as Current Contents, Dissertation Abstracts, Newspaper Abstracts, and the Census of Population and Housing, to sources devoted to a single field, such as Agricola, Artbibliographies Modern, Business Dateline, and Criminal Justice Abstracts. There are a number of factors taken into account when the library staff considers purchasing a database. The transcripts are not readily available any other way, so the purchase of this source clearly does not duplicate material MSU already owns. In this case, the main criteria the selectors consider are the cost of the source and how relevant it is to the curriculum and research interests of the discipline.
Some sources are unique but also very high cost.
Choices must be made about how to prioritize the electronic source with other resources in that field, such as print resources. If an electronic source does have a print counterpart, the decision becomes more complicated. A related issue is preservation of the information for future generations of users. Data contained in new forms of electronic media may need to be converted as new storage technologies are developed, and that is a future cost the library must anticipate. Another factor to be considered when selecting an electronic database is ease of use for the patron.