6.0581 Rs: Bibliographic Databases (2/65)
Elaine Brennan (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Fri, 12 Mar 1993 16:52:39 EST
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 6, No. 0581. Friday, 12 Mar 1993.
(1) Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1993 15:31 EDT (20 lines)
From: John Lavagnino <LAV@BRANDEIS.BITNET>
Subject: Bibliographic Databases
(2) Date: Fri, 12 Mar 93 21:38:38 +0100 (45 lines)
From: Roland Hjerppe <rhj@ida.liu.se>
Subject: Re: 6.0575 SW: CALL; Bibliographic Databases
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1993 15:31 EDT
From: John Lavagnino <LAV@BRANDEIS.BITNET>
Subject: Bibliographic Databases
Stephen Naoyuki Matsuba <matsuba@writer.yorku.ca> writes:
> But I noticed that in a number of cases, articles in the
> these "new" areas did include items in their bibliographies that were
> in my other sources. I began to think that it might be possible to
> use the bibliographies of articles and books as the basis for an
> expert system that would expand the capabilities of electronic
> bibliographic databases.
Indices to bibliographic citations exist: the version for our field is
called the Arts and Humanities Citation Index. What's new in this
contribution is the suggestion that it be combined with something like
the MLA bibliography in one system, which would certainly be something
new.
John Lavagnino, Department of English, Brandeis University
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------58----
Date: Fri, 12 Mar 93 21:38:38 +0100
From: Roland Hjerppe <rhj@ida.liu.se>
Subject: Re: 6.0575 SW: CALL; Bibliographic Databases (2/68)
>But I noticed that in a number of cases, articles in the
>these "new" areas did include items in their bibliographies that were
>in my other sources. I began to think that it might be possible to
>use the bibliographies of articles and books as the basis for an
>expert system that would expand the capabilities of electronic
>bibliographic databases.
It seems that you haven't encountered the citation indexes, Scienec
Citation Index, Social Science Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities
Citation Index, from Instiute for Scientific Information, in which you
can find out, updated on a quarterly basis since the late 60's, who has
been cited by whom, and do a lot of interesting studies, e.g. find out
how much your professors are cited. In the A&HCI case the sources are
"1 300 of the world's leading arts and humanities journals", in the
SSCI case the sources are 1 500 social science journals.
In addition you might consult e.g. Linguistics and Language Behaviour
Abstracts that covers appr. 1 000 journals.
These databases are available e.g. through Dialog. Talk to your
librarian.
Re keyword searches: there is much more you can and should utilize,
e.g. title words, abstracts, if available, etc. A proper literature
search, using printed indexes as wellas bibliographic databases
requires forethought in terms of thinking through what it is you are
searching for, planning and imagination, and usually redoing two or
three times on the basis of what was found the first times.
The first paradox of information retrieval: The need to specify that
which you don't know in order to find it.
Roland Hjerppe
LIBLAB
Dept. of Computer and Information Science
Link|ping University
S-581 83 Linkoping
Sweden
Internet: rhj@ida.liu.se T. +46 13 281965
BITNET: rhj@SELIUIDA F. +46 13 142231