Gale Business: DemographicsNow Scores Big with ccAdvisor

Appearance

The overall appearance and structural makeup of the website is very clean. Choices for narrowing results include full text, peer-reviewed sources; source types; publication dates; and more. The physical layout makes navigation easy. Related search terms appear at the top of the page, and words from the current search are highlighted so users can clearly see whether a source addresses the complete topic or just a portion.

Search Capabilities

Search options include basic, advanced, and publications. After arriving at the website link, a user outside the library will be prompted to enter a user ID and password. Clicking the Demographics tab at the top of the page will bring up a demographic report of the entire US. To generate a report that matches individual research needs, use the fields Enter Geography and Report Type at the top of the report. In the Enter Geography field, enter a location and click on the search symbol or hit Enter. In the Report Type field, click on the drop-down menu to view the options. These ready-to-go reports organize data about various categories of consumer spending and demographics. When a user selects a report type, the data below automatically updates for the geography already selected.

About Mosaic USA Consumer Segmentation Reports

One of the most interesting reports in the menu is the Mosaic [Household or Population] Comparison (see figure 2). Mosaic (Experian Marketing Services) is a market segmentation model that groups a population by such shared traits as values and lifestyle. Mosaic USA classifies and describes American consumers in 71 types and 19 overarching groupings that share similar demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. Full Mosaic USA profile descriptions are available in the database.

DemographicsNow allows access to demographic reports on any US geography and the ability to compare multiple geographies for information on income, housing, race, age, education, retail spending, consumer expenditures, businesses, and more. Users can narrow searches by state, county, ZIP code, congressional district, metro CBSA, and more. The database allows users to search for individual companies or create a mailing list of multiple companies from millions of businesses. Searches can be refined by company name, executive title, business type, number of employees, credit rating, and more and include out-of-business listings back to the year 2000. The database also allows searching for individuals, friends, and relatives and the creation of market research lists from more than 206 million US residents organized into 135 million households. Users can search by name, address, or telephone number or by a variety of US Census neighborhood data averages. Overall, the website has excellent features geared toward enabling users to improve or narrow search strategies.

Export Functions

The website has all the necessary export features users need. It allows them to e-mail, print, or download records. Users can also download citations into various numbers of charts, statistics lists, reports, summary charts, etc.

Help Features

The website has an About Us link for help and support at the top right of the screen. After clicking the link, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on Contact Us. The link provides a toll-free number (843-881-7203) and an e-mail address ([email protected]) to contact a support person.

RSS Feeds

GALE Cengage has RSS feed functionality. A user who enters a search string can create an alert for the search by selecting the RSS feed feature.

Reliability

DemographicsNow is very reliable and provides users with stable links to resources within the database.

For perpetual license content, as provided in the order, a customer agrees to pay a one-time fee and an annual hosting services fee for a perpetual license to certain content hosted by Cengage for access by authorized users (purchased content). The license to the purchased content and any updates (if included) is perpetual and may be revoked only if the customer materially breaches these terms or if the purchased content contains errors or is subject to an infringement or adverse claim by a third party. In consideration of the annual hosting services fee, Cengage will provide online access to the purchased content and updates (if included) on a Cengage website. If a customer loses the ability to access the purchased content on the Cengage website (e.g., if Cengage discontinues its hosting services), the customer may obtain a digital copy upon certifying that the customer will restrict use and provide a secure environment, subject to commercially reasonable digital rights management protocols for the purchased content as contemplated under the terms and the order. All use of the purchased content delivered shall be subject to these terms. File transfer costs, if any, are the sole responsibility of the customer.

Pricing

Pricing is negotiable and is handled directly between the digital resources librarian and the GALE Cengage sales team representative.

Authentication

The DemographicsNow/Cengage Collection database supports IP authentication, proxy authentication, embedded URL, referring URL, barcode authentication, Shibboleth, OpenAthens, and username/password.