How to choose an academic database for your college

Big-name databases are built for large research universities and priced accordingly. If you run a teaching college or a specialist institute, the brief is different: reliable access to quality, peer-reviewed scholarship, proof that students use it, and a price that doesn't assume you have a procurement team.

Start with your students, not the catalogue

List the subjects you actually teach and the kinds of sources your assignments require. Coverage that maps to your curriculum — including books and theses — beats raw size every time.

Insist on frictionless access

For a smaller institution, support tickets are expensive. Campus IP recognition and single sign-on mean students are simply "in" — worth more than a marginally larger catalogue you can't reach reliably.

Mind the total cost

Look past the licence fee to onboarding, training and the staff time a clunky system quietly consumes. A flat, predictable subscription with good onboarding usually wins.