A company-scheduled update occurred on November 19 for the EBSCO electronic database—a database which helps several UTM students and faculty obtain research information on a variety of topics.

The database was scheduled to be down from 6 a.m. until 1 p.m., to have the least possible impact on students.

The EBSCO database is a group of databases on the UTM library Web site that receives about 20, 000 hits a week. It consists of topics such as business, health professions, animals, geology and more.

With this update being so close to the end of the semester, many individuals were concerned with how it would affect students engaging in end-of-the-semester term papers.

Several students use the electronic databases available through the Paul Meeks Library. Students can obtain various scholarly reviewed publications for various topics.

These electroinc databases are very valuable to students, as they are the most commonly called-for resource by college professors today.

College professors are not looking for the major resources of a student’s paper to come from the Internet any more as it provides several noncredible sources. Therefore, professors want more credible sources, in which electronic databases provide.

Jim Nance, who is partially in charge of library databases, said “The downtime should have very little impact on students.” Nance said the update was scheduled by the company and therefore he had no control over the time it was to occur.

Nance said he felt the scheduled downtime was posted early enough that students could complete tasks before the system became inaccessible for a time.

The updates were scheduled to help the system run more smoothly and renew the information in the databases.

While these updates are a minor inconvience to students for a period of one day, they ultimately pay off for UTM students and faculty.