Publications and Bibliographies

Reviewed by Martin Shapiro, American University Library, June, 1998.

Introduction:

This review of the CD-ROM product IBSS Extrasupplements the review of the hard copy International Bibliography of Social and Cultural Anthropology published in the May 1997 issue of ANSS Currents, and accessible on ANSSWeb at http://www.lib.odu.edu/anss/reviews.htm.

IBSS Extra (International Bibliography of the Social Sciences) CD-ROM, 1981-March 1997. Quarterly updates. Published by the British Library of Political and Economic Science of the London School of Economics and Political Science. A CD-ROM using WinSPIRS search and retrieval software produced by SilverPlatter Information, Inc., 100 River Ridge Drive, Norwood, MA 02062-5043 (800-343-0064 or 617-769-2599; fax: 617-769-8763). &nbs-343-0064 or 617-769-2599; fax: 617-769-8763). Hardware requirements include an IBM PC-compatible with 4 MB of RAM or more, 8 MB of free hard disk space, a Windows-compatible mouse or other pointing device, and an ISSO 9660 compatible CD-ROM drive and controller card capable of reading 680 MB compact discs. Requires Microsoft Windows version 3.1 or higher.

The annual subscription price for the stand-alone CD-ROM is $1995. Network fees, which are based on the number of simultaneous users, incorporate the annual subscription price. For a single user the network fee is $2494; for 2-4 simultaneous users the network fee amounts to $2993; for 5-8 simultaneous users $3990; and for 9 to 12 simultaneous users $5486. A site license, for more than 12 simultaneous users, costs $7980. IBSS Extrais also available via subscription as a Web site, with the remote access fee following the identical pricing structure as the network fees. The hard copy International Bibliography of the Social Sciences is not included in any of these prices, nor is any discount available with a concurrent subscription to the print format.

Scope and Coverage:

The IBSS ExtraCD-ROM integrates the series of the hard copy International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (which separately covers social and cultural anthropology, economics, political science, and sociology). On this compact disc, these series are refeis compact disc, these series are referred to as "subsets." The March 1997 disc provided 110,571 records in the Anthropology subset, 216,182 in Economics, 201,709 in Political Science, and 192,451 for Sociology. To restrict a search to the anthropology subset (equivalent to searching the hard copy International Bibliography of Social and Cultural Anthropology), the user may select the "limit" button, highlight "subset," then choose "anthropology."

Over 2600 periodicals from more than 100 countries in 70 different languages are indexed in IBSS. Records for materials not in English (about 30 percent of the total) are supplied with an English title translation. Unfortunately, unlike the hard copy edition, it is not possible to find a listing of journals arranged alphabetically with publisher information. However, the user may search a particular journal by keying [name of journal] in so where so means "source." IBSS Extraalso indexes books, book reviews, and chapters when individual authors have contributed to a book. Approximately 100,000 citations are added to this database each year.

Record Structure and Retrieval:

Individual records are available in two formats. Full records consist of a title (ti), author (au), source (so, title of journal), publication type (pt, an article, book, book review, book chapter, or collection), publication yk chapter, or collection), publication year (py), a notes field (nt, where available, usually indicates whether or not an index and bibliography are included), language (la), descriptors (deg, geographic and des, subject), ISBN (ib) or ISSN (is) numbers, the publisher and date of a book reviewed (rb, if applicable), subset (sb, see "Scope and Coverage" above), series information (se, if applicable), and universal resource locator (url, if applicable). A brief citation record contains a title, author, source, publication type, publication date, and accession number.

The "limit" function allows the user to choose a subset, language, publication type, and a specific year or a range of years. A search on the topic of migration to or from Puerto Rico could employ the following search strategy: Puerto Ric* and migration. The asterisk is a truncation symbol. A user may fashion a very specific inquiry indeed, such as limiting the search to articles from anthropological journals published in Spanish after 1992.

Operators for constructing search strategies include and, or, not, plus two proximity operators: with, which searches for two terms that appear in the same field; and near, which will search for two terms in the same sentence. A number may be added to the latter operator to signify how close the two terms should be. Yoruba near2 language will find records where Yoruba appguage will find records where Yoruba appears within two words of language in any order.

The system includes separate indexes for authors, geographic and subject descriptors, publication date, subset, publication type, language, accession number. A "change" button allows the user to move between different indexes. There is also a free-text index in which all fields may be searched by typing the field label as a suffix (bergmann in au, where au indicates author).

Lateral searching is another useful feature. One can highlight individual terms from among the descriptors in any record, choose the "Add to search" option at the bottom of the screen, and conduct a search on the highlighted term.

A set of records may be created by selecting the book symbol at the upper-left side of each record. A red line appears in the left-hand margin to indicate that a record has been chosen. Created sets may be printed or downloaded to a disk by clicking on the "download" button on the bar near the top of the screen. A dialog box appears in either case, allowing the user to customize the output by designating which fields should be reproduced.

It is worth noting that IBSS Extrarecords, with separate lines for each field, read much more clearly than the hard copy bibliographies. Many users will appreciate having subject and geographical descriptors incorporated as a significant part of ers incorporated as a significant part of each record. Users confused by ISBN and ISSN numbers will find the publication type designation helpful. Records belonging to the electronic journals Sociological Research Online and Internet Archaeology offer an abstract (ab) field containing a surprisingly detailed summary.

User Instruction:

A "Getting Started Guide" and user's manual accompany the software. In addition, a "WinSPIRS Quick Reference Card" offers descriptions of the search screen, screen buttons, and function keys. However, not every WinSPIRS feature described in the literature is available on IBSS Extra. The only hard copy help specific to this product is a "Quick Reference Guide" with brief descriptions of basic functions. Help screens are plentiful and offer search examples, as well as explanations for each separate field comprising a full record. A thesaurus is not available on IBSS Extra, alvailable on IBSS Extra, although it would be very helpful for locating descriptors which are closely related.

Summary:

At $230 per year for each series in the hard copy, the total cost of the four series represents less than half the price of the CD-ROM before any networking fees are added. Researchers familiar with the hard copy bibliographies will miss the intricate subject classification scheme and the listing of periodical information. For these users, the lack of a thesaurus on the CD-ROM may be a problem. However, the combined IBSS, which allows the user to move effortlessly across disciplines, will prove extremely beneficial to the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of research in the social sciences. The time lag that plagued the hard copy format for years is no longer an issue since updated discs are produced quarterly. One disc containing over 720,900 records spanning more than 15 years of research in four disciplines will be worth the extra cost to many libraries.