Referencia Latina

Referencia Latina is a Spanish-language, full-text database licensed by EBSCO starting in 2010. Referencia Latina is on the EBSCOhost platform, offering robust searchability, a wide range of authentication methods, a mobile application, reasonable institutional terms and conditions, and a user-friendly interface already familiar to many end users. It includes some 2,500 health reports, 150 multidisciplinary reference books, 50 periodicals, and 20 academic journals, all in Spanish. This content is a hodgepodge of academic, general interest, and young adult content, with a large portion of the reference books drawn from the DK Eyewitness series for juveniles. Most of the content is from the United States, Spain, and Mexico, with little representation from publishers in South and Central America. Referencia Latina offers only rudimentary geographic diversity, depth of content, or value on investment, though the database is cheap enough to attract public or K-12 libraries that can afford only a single catchall Spanish-language database. EBSCO should try to identify key markets and optimize Referencia Latina’s content to target those markets.