James L. Harner

“ Until 1981 there is no convenient way of determining what serials listed in the Master List of Periodicals are actually covered in a given volume; in the bibliographies since that for 1989, an asterisk preceding an acronym in the Master List denotes that at least one issue of the journal or volume in the series is indexed (those with access to the database can search by journal and year to determine which volumes were actually covered) ; issues of journals whose coverage lapses for a year or more are frequently left unanalyzed. New journals are not always added in a timely manner ”

“ Basic Search allows for a keyword search of subjects, titles, or full text; Advanced Search allows a keyword search of standard record fields (e.g., author, title, date, subject) to be limited to full-text or peer-reviewed documents and by date, document type, and title. Results, which can be limited in a variety of ways depending on content and document type, can be sorted by date (ascending or descending) or relevance and marked for printing, e-mailing, or downloading. One of the largest general databases, Academic OneFile offers limited coverage of language and literature resources. ”

“ The criteria governing selection of journals and reviews have never been explained; coverage of a journal is often erratic and issues incompletely indexed; and the compilation procedures and editing hardly inspire confidence in the accuracy and thoroughness. However, the breadth of coverage—the most wide-ranging of any single index—makes IBR a useful complement to the other review indexes in this section. ”

“ Serial Bibliographies, Indexes, and Abstracts Serial bibliographies, indexes, and abstracts (print and electronic) that are published or updated at regular intervals are important resources for literature and language scholars since they guide researchers to the most recent scholarship. At the first stage of a project, researchers should identify the pertinent serial bibliographies, indexes, and abstracts; become thoroughly familiar with their scope, limitations, taxonomy, and record structure ”

“ Because of its weak coverage of the humanities, limited scope (currently, about 109 periodicals, many of them popular) , and numerous restrictions—in many volumes books must be published or distributed in the United States, reviews must appear within 18 months of publication, a nonfiction work must have two reviews (fiction, three) in the periodicals indexed, at least one review must be published in the United States—Book Review Digest is more useful for identifying reviews of popular fiction and nonfiction than scholarly works. ”

“ Studies not assignable to a national literature, general discussions of themes or genres, and works about criticism and theory are listed in the General Literature section (which for many years also served as a catchall and included several national literatures, folklore, and general linguistics) . Folklore scholarship is classified by broad topics (e.g., Folk Poetry, Folk Games and Toys, Material Culture) , then by types (e.g., Folk Poetry includes headings for Oral Epics, Ballads, Songs, and Rhymes and Verses) , and then continent. ”

“ Users searching the print version of Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature for reviews should consult the prefatory “Suggestions for . . . Use” for an explanation of indexing practices. Since 1974, author and title (but not subject) entries for short stories are repeated in Short Story Index (L1085) . Readers’ Guide Retrospective—which replicates the data in the print version of Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature—indexes 375 magazines published between 1890 and 1992. See entry I512 for an evaluation of the EBSCO search interface, which all the Readers’ Guide databases use. ”

“ A convenient reprint of the annual surveys, useful now because they cover a period before publication of MLAIB (G335) and ABELL (G340) . The highly selective essay reviews, restricted largely to American scholarship, cover classical and European languages and literatures. The American literature sections treat creative, rather than scholarly, works. The one-page subject index lists only literature and language divisions; the “Personal Name and Main Entry” index, contrary to its title, includes only scholars, literary authors, and an occasional anonymous work. ”

“ The most useful feature of both bibliographies is the subject indexing; however, researchers must devote considerable time to mastering terminology and identifying appropriate headings and must remember that indexing is dependent on title words and is sometimes too broad to be useful (e.g. “englische literatur” or “theater”) .
IJBF Online (with coverage since 1977) and IJBK (with coverage since 1984) are much easier to search than the print version. ”

“ The Festschriften list by fields of knowledge classifies the collections in 17 fields of knowledge, including general; book, documentation, and communication; linguistics and literary studies; art and culture; and folklore and ethnology. The subject index is a keyword index, in German with English and French cross-references, to titles of contributions. The keyword index lists, by field of knowledge, the headings used in the subject index. The author index is an index of contributors listed in the Festschriften entries. ”

“ Individual authors have subdivisions for general studies, bibliographies, genres, and literary works. In general, the post-1980 volumes are more consistent than their predecessors in distinguishing national literatures. The remaining inconsistencies—for example, there are no separate sections for Swiss or Austrian literature—are generally ameliorated by the national literature headings in the subject index. ”

“ An author entry cites the heading under which the article is listed. The Periodical Index contains an alphabetical list of periodicals cited in the Subject Index. IBZ Online includes records since 1983; beginning in November 2009, some records include abstracts. The search screen allows users to search by keyword, article title, author, periodical title, date of publication, subject headings, classification (most headings are far to broad) , abstract (in records added since 2009) , publisher, or ISSN (or combinations of the preceding) . ”

“ Since English and American Studies in German relies on authors and editors for abstracts, coverage is incomplete but does include many studies overlooked in the standard bibliographies.
See also Because of their international, interdisciplinary scope, the following works abstract a considerable number of literature- and language-related studies not included or inadequately indexed in standard literature and language bibliographies: America: History and Life (Q3310) , Historical Abstracts (U6500) , PsycINFO (U6530) , Sociological Abstracts (U6560) , Women Studies Abstracts (U6610) . ”

“ Users must be aware that a distributor’s search interface will determine how the database can be searched, affect the number of records that a search returns, and govern how search results appear and can be manipulated. ”

“ Searching journal articles improved in 2008, when MLAIB began including abstracts provided by some publishers. Although some descriptors were added and classification discrepancies resolved when listings from 1926 through 1980 were added to the database, online searching of these entries will never allow the flexibility and specificity possible with post-1980 citations. Those using the online file should watch the MLA Web site for updates on search techniques or consult the guides associated with the vendor interfaces. ”

“ Although AHCI and ISSHP represent a largely unsuccessful attempt to apply science and social science indexing practices to the humanities, they occasionally uncover important discussions of individuals buried in obscurely titled articles or in journals and conference proceedings in other disciplines. ”

“ Although it omits numerous important journals, is difficult to scan in the volumes printed from uppercase computer printout, is inconsistent in covering titles, and lacks an adequate statement of criteria governing the selection of journals, Index to Book Reviews in the Humanities was by far the best, most trustworthy source for locating scholarly reviews of books on language and literature ”

“ Entries for children’s books are repeated in Children’s Book Review Index (U5495) , but this clone and two cumulations—Book Review Index: Reference Books, 1965–1984 (1986; 700 pp.) and Book Review Index: Periodical Reviews, 1976–1984 (1987; 295 pp.) —are hardly essential for those with access to the 1965–84 cumulation.
To locate reviews before 1965, see Book Review Digest (New York: Wilson, 1905– ; 10/yr., with annual cumulation) . ”

“ A bibliography of serial bibliographies and indexes, closed bibliographies, and other works (through the mid-1960s) that cite reviews from more than one periodical. The 512 entries are organized by author or title in nine variously classified subject divisions: general works (including general book review indexes) ; philosophy and psychology; religion; social sciences (with a section for anthropology and folklore) ; ancient, Asian, and African civilizations; modern languages, philology, and literature ”

“ The best of the electronic resources allow users to save searches for running at regular intervals and offer an alert service that generates e-mail notices when new records related to a search are added. ”

“ Records in the electronic version, which includes publications since 1962, can be searched through the ProQuest search interface (see entry I519 for a discussion of search options) . In addition, searchers can browse the BHI thesaurus. BHI is useful because of its good subject indexing, abstracts, and inclusion of some publications (mostly weeklies and newspapers) not covered by other bibliographies in this section.
G380 Essay and General Literature Index (EGLI) . New York: Wilson, 1931–2011. Semiannual, with annual, quinquennial, and larger cumulations extending coverage to 1900. ”

“ Each section includes appropriate divisions and subdivisions (e.g., Sociolinguistics has subdivisions for Ethnolinguistics, Language Attitudes, Language Policy, Social Dialects, and Speech Registers; Stylistics has a subdivision for Rhetoric) . ”

“ ProQuest Research Library (http://search.proquest.com; formerly Periodical Abstracts) indexes more than 4,000 periodicals from a wide range of fields. Coverage before 1970 is not extensive.
G390 IBZ: Internationale Bibliographie der geistes- und sozialwissenschaftlichen Zeitschriftenliteratur / International Bibliography of Periodical Literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences / Bibliographie internationale de la littérature périodique dans les sciences humaines et sociales, [1965– ] (IBZ, Dietrich) . Berlin: de Gruyter, 1965– . 2 multivol. ”

“ Sciences humaines (1961–68) . Z6513.B82 800.
A database of articles from journals (currently about 4,300) and edited collections that are devoted to the humanities, linguistics, social sciences, and history of art. Since 1988, the literature portion has focused on English- and French-language literatures, comparative literature, and literary theory and history; before 1988 coverage extended to European as well as to non-English-language South American and African literatures. Most North American users will access FRANCIS through EBSCO (I512) , Ovid (http://www.ovid.com) , or ProQuest (I519) ”

“ Histoire et sciences de la littérature. Vandœuvre-lès-Nancy: Institut de l’Information Scientifique et Technique, 1947–94. Former titles: Bulletin analytique (1947–55) ; Bulletin signalétique: Philosophie, sciences humaines (1956–60) ”

“ Literature Bibliographies G335 MLA International Bibliography of Books and Articles on the Modern Languages and Literatures (MLAIB; sometimes called PMLA Bibliography) . New York: MLA, 1922–2009. Annual. Z7006.M64 016.8. .
A classified bibliography of literary, linguistic, and folklore scholarship published in print or electronically, although print publication ceased in 2009. Its scope is extensive: all human languages (living and dead) and many invented ones ”