Refined Collection Decisions for Evolving Academic Programs
The evaluation and selection of academic library materials is as much art as science. As such, research librarians acquire considerable experience to draw upon in anticipating needs.
But as academic institutions seek great flexibility in meeting evolving curricular demands, new tools are required to stay current while controlling costs.
bird® was developed to assist in meeting these new challenges.
bird® is a continuously updated inventory of over 9,400 research databases, designed by research librarians to enable more flexible content assessment. Using bird® leads to more accurate strategic alignment with evolving academic priorities—and less time doing it.
bird® provides subject selectors, collection managers, and content strategists with rich metadata and comprehensive profiles that enhance confidence in title evaluation, gap analysis, and collection benchmarking across disciplines.
bird® helps libraries make precise, evidence-based decisions about collection development and resource investment.
The complimentary suite nest® is a comparative holdings analytics and reporting service, built into the bird® platform. It enables libraries to benchmark their holdings against peer institutions, and create custom comparison groups by size, classification, or consortium.
Together, bird® and nest® enable stronger collections and better outcomes.
“For libraries supporting emerging academic programs or undergoing resource realignment, bird & nest offer a powerful means to inform evidence-based decisions.”
—Katina Magazine
Reference Universe
The Guide to Authoritative Specialized Reference Works
Reference Universe is not a library “discovery service”—and it is not designed to be.
Since 2004, Reference Universe has focused exclusively on what broad discovery systems overlook: deep, structured access to authoritative specialized encyclopedias.
Reference Universe aggregates table-of-contents and full index data from more than 75,000 specialized print and electronic encyclopedias, compendia, and scholarly handbooks, creating
a precise map of foundational scholarship.
Researchers are guided directly to vetted, expert-authored overviews that establish context, terminology, and conceptual frameworks before they move on to articles or monographs.
In an environment crowded with expansive, expensive and often unfocused discovery tools, Reference Universe serves a distinct and critical role in library research: the intentional ‘first stop’ for serious research—before breadth, volume, and noise.
Reference Universe connects researchers to the starting points scholarship requires.
“Two databases for identifying initial overview articles deserve particular emphasis, Reference Universe and Web of Science.
The easiest way is through Reference Universe....it provides much more extensive coverage than any other single source.”
— Oxford Guide to Library Research, 4th edition.
Eight Centuries: 1160-1960
The Primary Source Portal at Scholary Scale
Eight Centuries: 1160-1960 was created to solve a problem that narrowly focused primary source databases cannot: historical research does not respect disciplinary, institutional, or archival boundaries.
Since 1999, Eight Centuries has grown to now embrace more than 100 million curated links to primary source materials spanning nearly every academic historical discipline. Rather than isolating scholars within a single archive, publisher, or thematic silo, Eight Centuries provides structured pathways across the full landscape of historical evidence.
Its coverage extends well beyond traditional humanities collections to include:
Humanities and Social Sciences
Physical Sciences and Engineering history
Art exhibitions and visual culture
Legal and governmental history
Psychology and the history of science
Cartography and the history of medicine
Eight Centuries It is a discipline-agnostic, scale-driven research infrastructure designed to reflect how historians and scholars actually work—across centuries, across fields, and across collections—linking researchers to relevant primary sources wherever they reside.
“Eight Centuries is the most comprehensive research tool for 19th century studies. It should be the researcher's first stop to explore the literature .“ ***** (5 Stars)
— The Charleston Advisor
One Search Across the Full History of U.S. Public Life
United States Masterfile: 1774-2026
Researching U.S. history and governance often requires navigating dozens of disconnected sources—especially when moving between contemporary publications and hard-to-locate historical materials. United States Masterfile: 1774-2026 removes that complexity.
U.S. Masterfile enables unified searching across more than 15 million historical and contemporary U.S. public and political documents, spanning the nation’s documentary record from the earliest proceedings of the Continental Congress to the daily output of today’s federal publications. Data includes:
Foundational congressional and early government materials
Federal agency and departmental publications
Contemporary legislative, regulatory, and administrative documents
All content is accessible through one application, eliminating the need to move between era-specific tools or specialized historical databases.
Crucially, U.S. Masterfile is updated daily, ensuring that the historical record remains continuous—not frozen in time.
“United States Masterfile is designed by people who know historical finding tools and how to bring them together in a seamless interface. “
— Documents Librarian, Johns Hopkins University