UPDATED DATABASE LIST Jan. 1998


BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATABASES ACCESSIBLE
IN OBERLIN COLLEGE LIBRARIES
Arranged by Subject

  • General and Reference Databases

    Global Books In Print Plus.

    CD-ROM Network. Provides access to complete English-language bibliographic information from the United States, United Kingdom, Continental Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Africa, Asia, Latin America, Canada, and the Oceanic States. It is the most comprehensive database that offers access to books in print worldwide.

    The National Newspaper Index.

    (1993- ) CD-ROM Network. Provides a single, in-depth reference to five major newspapers: The database spans three to four years of information and is updated monthly.

    Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature

    (1983- ) CD-ROM Network. Indexes articles from more than 240 of the most popular general-interest magazines published in the United States and Canada. It is a comprehensive index to popular literature, covering all subjects and such general news areas as current events, business, fashion, politics, crafts, education, history, sports, food, and science.

  • Multidisciplinary Databases

    Black Studies on Disc

    Main Library, stand-alone workstation. Contains information on materials by and about African Americans and Africans and peoples of African ancestry. It is based on the holdings on the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a division of The New York Public Library and the world's leading library for materials relating to the African diaspora. The database includes manuscripts, audio materials, photographs, scores, and periodical citations from Index to Black Periodicals (1989-1993), covering a broad range of popular magazines and scholarly journals.

    Environment Abstracts on CD-ROM

    Main Library, stand-alone workstation. Provides access to papers and articles in over 800 English-language journals, conference papers and proceedings, and other select publications from international and non-governmental organizations, universities, associations and private organizations.

    FirstSearch

    FirstSearch is not one database, but a searching service that offers access to more than 60 databases in a broad array of disciplines. Databases are arranged by subject categories. Local users may access FirstSearch from the OBIS WebPac or by choosing option D>Connect to Other Databases from the main menu of the Telnet version of OBIS. Some of the most popular, multidisciplinary databases on FirstSearch include:

    UnCover

    Access via OBIS. UnCover is both an online bibliographic database and periodical article delivery service which indexes nearly 17,000 English language periodicals in all disciplines. Five thousand citations are added daily. The UnCover Reveal Alert service delivers tables of contents from the latest periodical issues directly to your e-mail box and your stored search strategies are automatically run each week against new articles added to the database, and the results e-mailed. Articles located in the UnCover database can be sent to your fax machine within 24 hours - sometimes in less than one hour.

    Women's Studies on Disc

    Main Library, stand-alone workstation. The electronic version of the Women's Studies Index, an annual print publication of GK Hall & Co. The database covers a broad range of around 100 titles, from popular magazines to scholarly journals worldwide, with an emphasis on American materials.

  • Arts and Humanities Databases

    ArtBibliographies Modern on Disc

    Art Library. Abstracts of the current literature of modern art, photography, and design. Covers 19th and 20th centuries, with more focus on the latter. ABC-Clio Information Services.

    Art Index

    (1984- ) CD-ROM Network. Cites articles from more than 290 periodicals published throughout the world. Periodical coverage includes English-language periodicals, yearbooks, and museum bulletins, as well as periodicals published in French, Italian, German, Japanese, Spanish, Dutch, and Swedish. In addition to articles, the database indexes reproductions of works of art that appear in indexed periodicals.

    Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals

    RLG Eureka database, may be accessed via OBIS. Contains records describing articles in more than 1,000 periodicals in the field of architecture and related disciplines such as city planning, historic preservation, and interior design. Coverage is from 1977 to the present and is updated daily.

    Bibliography of the History of Art

    Art Library. Joint publication of the Art History Information Program of the J. Paul Getty Trust and the Institut National de l'information scientifique et technique (INIST) of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Covers art history from the third century to the present.

    Humanities Index

    (1984- ) CD-ROM Network. Covers articles from more than 350 English-language periodicals in the fields of archaeology and classical studies, art and photography, folklore, general scholarship, history, journalism and communications, language and literature, literary and political criticism, music and performing arts, philosophy, and religion and theology. Unlike Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature which only indexes popular magazines, Humanities Index includes some of the best-known scholarly journals and numerous lesser-known but important specialized journals in related disciplines.

    MLA International Bibliography

    (1963- ) CD-ROM Network. Produced by the Modern Language Association, is the most comprehensive database that consists of bibliographic records pertaining to literature, language, linguistics, and folklore. The database provides access to scholarly research in over 3,000 journals and series and also covers relevant monographs, working papers, proceedings, bibliographies, and other formats.

    The Religion Index on CD-ROM

    CD-ROM Network. Produced by the American Theological Library Association, Inc., includes five distinct indexes searchable as a combined database. The combined database includes articles from scholarly journals, difficult-to-find eases such as Festschriften, conference proceedings and congresses, book reviews and projects, reports, and theses in ministry.

  • Social Sciences Databases

    America: History and Life on Disc

    (1982- ) CD-ROM Network. Covers the world's scholarly literature in history. The scope and contents of the CD-ROM database are identical to those of its printed counterpart: article abstracts and bibliographical citations of reviews and dissertations on the history and culture of the United States and Canada from prehistoric times to the present.

    Anthropological Literature

    RLG Eureka database, may be accessed via OBIS. Covers articles and essays in anthropology and archaeology, and is recognized as one of the most important tools in the field. ANL indexes articles of two or more pages in length, from works published in English or another European language. Examples of subjects included are archaeology, anthropology, demography, economics, ethnohistory, folklore, genetics and geography. Coverage is from 1984 to the present and is updated quarterly.

    EconLit

    (1969- ) CD-ROM Network. Comprehensive, indexed bibliography with selected abstracts of the world's economic literature, produced by the American Economic Association. It includes coverage of over 400 major journals as well as articles in collective volumes (essays, proceedings, etc.), books, book reviews, dissertations, and working papers licensed from the Cambridge University Press Abstracts of Working Papers in Economics.

    Historical Abstracts on Disc

    (1982- ) CD-ROM Network. Covers the world's scholarly literature in history. The scope and contents of the CD-ROM database are identical to those of its printed counterpart: article abstracts and bibliographical citations of books and dissertations on the history of the world, except the United States and Canada, from 1450 to the present. Works on U.S. and Canadian history are covered in America: History and Life on Disc.

    PsycLIT

    CD-ROM Network. Includes two parts: The Journal Articles Database (1974- ) and The Book Chapters & Books Database (1987- ). Contains summaries of the world's serial literature in psychology and related disciplines from over 1300 journals in 27 languages from approximately 50 countries; also summaries of English-language chapters and books in psychology and related disciplines published worldwide.

    Social Sciences Index

    (SSI) (1983- ) CD-ROM Network. Cites articles of at least one column in length from more than 350 English-language periodicals published in the United States and elsewhere. Social Sciences Index includes a wide range of interdisciplinary fields covered in a broad array of social sciences journals, both popular and scholarly.

    Sociofile

    (1974- ) CD-ROM Network. Contains information from approximately 2000 journals in 30 different languages from about 55 countries. Compared to Social Sciences Index, which only indexes bibliographic information in widely held journals, Sociofile includes citations and abstracts of items in scholarly journals, working papers, and dissertations in sociology and related disciplines.

  • International Studies Databases

    FBIS Index

    (Foreign Broadcast Information Service) CD-ROM Network. Covers translated transcripts of foreign radio and television broadcasts, news, agency transmissions, newspapers, periodicals and government statements from around the world. Provides access to international source coverage of economic, political, military, environmental and sociological news and commentary.

    Index to United Nations Documents and Publications

    (1990- ) CD-ROM Network. Provides fast access to current and retrospective United Nations documents and publications. The Index contains information on international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian nature, and issues of peace and security, world hunger, human rights, economic development, the environment and atomic energy. Includes the documents from six bodies of the United Nations: General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council, Trusteeship Council, Secretariat and international Council of Justice.

    PAIS International

    (Public Affairs Information Service, Inc.) (1972- ) CD-ROM Network. Indexes the literature of public policy, social policy, and the social sciences in general. Journal articles, books, government documents, statistical compilations, committee reports, directories, serials, reports of public, intergovernmental, and private organizations, and most other forms of printed literature from all over the world are indexed.

  • Science and Math

    Biological Sciences Database

    WWW access, from Cambridge Scientific Abstracts Internet Database Service (CSA IDS). Offers 23 databases which index and abstract journals and other primary literature in all of the life science disciplines. Each database has two coverage options available. One includes access to records for the current year plus a backfile extending back five years, while the other is a complete archive of all records indexed from the inception of the database. The main core of Cambridge Scientific's publishing program falls in the area of the life sciences. The databases cover broad subjects such as biochemistry, microbiology, toxicology, genetics, and immunology, as well as the narrower areas of bioengineering and chemoreception, gene therapy and immunotoxins.

    Current Contents: Agriculture, Biology, and Environmental Sciences

    (1995- ) Science Library. Provides author and title keyword access to journal articles on a weekly basis; excellent index for the most recently published journals. Can search up to 15 weekly issues at the same time, which are loaded on the hard drive of the Windows workstation in the science library. Can also search a separate CD-ROM of one year's cumulation of contents; the CD-ROM is kept at the sci library reserve counter. Best use:To find the most current information on a given topic, once other, more comprehensive sources have been searched.

    Current Contents: Life Sciences

    Science Library. Similar in format, identical search software as the previous title, on a much larger scale (three times as many journals are indexed).

    General Science Index

    (GSI) (1984- ) CD-ROM Network. Cites articles of at least one column in length from approximately 140 English-language periodicals published in the United States and Great Britain. Coverage includes publications from popular science magazines as well as professional science and health journals. Advantages of using GSI include the ready availability of most of the journals covered and the use of Library of Congress Subject Headings for indexing. One significant disadvantage is the lack of abstracts. A good place to begin a search for science literature; a comprehensive search requires continued research in another database that is both more comprehensive and focused in scope (databases such as Chemical Abstracts, GeoRef, Inspec, Science Citation Index, MathSciNet, Medline, and Cambridge Scientific Abstracts).

    GeoRef

    (1785- ) Science Library stand-alone CD-ROM product, or accessible to local users on FirstSearch. The electronic version of Bibliography and Index of Geology. Comprehensive, exhaustive, retrospective (yes, to the 18th century) coverage of a wide array of the earth sciences literature! Excellent indexing, thoughtful thesaurus of subject descriptors, abstracts given for most of the recent materials. All this and SilverPlatter's effective search software, too. Who could ask for more?

    MathSciNet

    The Web version of Mathematical Reviews. Comprehensive coverage of English language primary source materials in mathematics, as well as thorough indexing of major foreign periodicals.

    Medline and TOXLINE

    Available through the CSA IDS, a useful feature of the service is the ability to search all CSA biological databases, Medline and TOXLINE simultaneously. The in-depth abstracts and controlled vocabulary indexing are other positive aspects of using this service. Medline is also available to local users on FirstSearch.

    Science Citation Index

    on CD-ROM (1991- ) Science Library. Multidisciplinary index covering 3,300 major journals across 100 scientific disciplines. More than 600,000 new items are indexed each year. Unique for its indexing of the cited references of the source articles. Can search by cited author or cited paper and display an article's bibliography. Check out CD-ROM discs from sci library reserve counter.

    Advantages of use: sophisticated searching system allows for well-defined queries. Cited paper searching can retrieve many relevant papers even when appropriate keywords and synonyms are not known, based on knowledge of just one older article. Exhaustive coverage of all major journals for each discipline indexed.

    Disadvantages: no subject indexing or subject authority can be problematic; must search for all keywords and synonyms (including variant spelling) that might appear in relevant article titles. Multiple discs; retrospective searches are somewhat tedious.

  • Government Publications

    EDsearch

    CD-ROM Network. Education Statistics on Disk is a computerized search and retrieval system designed to provide an easy way to locate and display specific information contained in the wealth of statistical tables produced by the National Center for Education Statistics (CES). The program includes the complete contents of the following NCES publications:

    GPO CAT/PAC

    CD-ROM Network. Contains citations and cataloging information for publications issued by the United States government agencies. It includes Senate and House hearings on bills and laws, as well as agency-sponsored studies, fact sheets, maps, handbooks, subject bibliographies, and conference proceedings going back to 1976. Subject coverage includes agriculture, economics, energy, public affairs, taxation, law, health, consumer issues and environment. It corresponds in part to Monthly Catalog of the United States Government Publications. The database is updated monthly.

    National Economic, Social & Environmental Data Bank

    CD-ROM Network. Created by STAT-USA, an office of the U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration to provide public access to information on important domestic topics related to public policy issues and concerns. The NESE now contains data from 19 Federal Agencies; future issues will include contributions from additional agencies. A static file, updated information is not expected in the near future.

    National Trade Data Bank

    (NTDB 1990-1996) CD-ROM Network. Published by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, STAT-USA, with assistance and advice from the Interagency Trade Data Advisory Committee, representing 14 Federal agencies. The NTDB includes the best of the trade promotion and international economic data.

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