Major Upgrades

The theme here is, in a sense, “What have you done for us lately?” We're taking a second look at some of the resources we've previously reviewed to get a sense of the improvements they've undergone since that first visit.

One of the clearest trends has been the focus on bringing retrospective collections online. Publishers have made a concerted effort to mine the riches of their own preelectronic legacies. A second theme—nearly universal and hardly surprising—has to do with how publishers have responded to the continual pressure to make improvements to the interface and the overall functionality of the products currently on the market. A third is the introduction of new content, frequently acquired from an external source and adapted to fit in with a publisher's existing product line.

One of the most interesting developments, though, is the number of products that are making the transition from passive resource to active service. H.W. Wilson has just introduced an alert service, something that many publishers have offered for some time. ABI/Inform goes a step further by enabling several types of subscriptions to topical RSS feeds geared to the needs of faculty research and teaching as well as to more general needs of libraries that want to add business-­related news content to their web sites. And Naxos is podcasting selections from its classical music library.

ABI/Inform Complete
ProQuest Information & Learning

Content While revisiting ProQuest and ABI/Inform Complete we observed numerous modification/customization options since the product was last reviewed in the Winter 2003 netConnect (1/03). Although the principal enhancements fall within the interface platform and search functionality, content has changed as well. The total publication count has steadily increased, and, as of fall 2005, the database had 2800+ full-text journals, with additions such as Journal of European Economic History, The Economic History Review, Economic Development Quarterly, and Journal of Risk Finance. A recent agreement with Oxford Economic Forecasting will enable the distribution of political and economic reports through a variety of ProQuest's business databases including ABI/INFORM Global. These reports are used for analysis of trends in major global and emerging economies. New publications will include World Economic Prospects, Emerging Markets Watch, Commodity Price Monitor, and Hilfe Economic Briefings. International research has also been aided with the addition of EIU ViewsWires and “Going Global Career Guides.”

Searchability Several items are worth noting here but also look to earlier ProQuest reviews for detailed interface functionality. As mentioned above, the new platform allows access to PQDT content. After a search is executed, users can select the Dissertations tab on the search results page to browse a thumbnail scanned image of the first 24 pages of the desired document, as noted above. A link to Order a Copy provides easy access to view purchase of alternative formats such as paper and microform and even PDF format when instant full-text download is not available.

Now automatically displayed at the bottom of the article page, the More Like This search feature is easier to use, allowing researchers to expand their research to find similar documents. A link will be added to the top of the full-text article page to promote it further to patrons. Two recognizable features, My Research Summary and the Marked List page, are now combined into a single feature called My Research, which appears in a tab at the top of every page. The new feature is much more intuitive for researchers. Options to use and manage search results include the ability to create a bibliography, view and email marked records, export citations (Harvard and Vancouver are two new available citation styles), and create a web page with links to full text, searches, and publications. Email enhancements such as multiple articles per email, more format choices, and the ability to email translated articles are a plus.

Pricing Subscription prices are based on FTE count for academic institutions, population served for public and corporate settings, particular collection package, and buying group discounts. Free trials are available.

Who needs it? We've said it before, but we'll say it again—ProQuest gets high marks with its powerful interface, and institutions can easily integrate ABI/Inform Complete with other ProQuest business databases if desired. Enhancements such as RSS feeds, Author Profiles (where users can also browse an institution's profile), and the ProQuest Business Dissertations raise the bar not only for access to pertinent current curriculum-based material but for accuracy within the authority file and broader research possibilities.

Art Museum Image Gallery
Published by H.W. Wilson

Content The dramatic expansion of retrospective coverage, pursued by many producers, is one of the major themes in the contemporary electronic resources picture. Another is the upgrade to both the interface and the overall functionality of the system. A third is the development and introduction of new resources. H.W. Wilson has been active on all three fronts.

As perhaps the preeminent publisher of print indexing sources over the past century, Wilson's move to capitalize on its legacy by introducing a steady stream of retrospective titles is both logical and welcome. The company's 2006 catalog lists Applied Science & Technology Retrospective: 1913–1983, Biography Index: 1946 to Present, and Book Review Digest Retrospective: 1905–1982 among its new releases (for the latter, see also review in LJ 1/1/06, p. 36), along with an expanded version of Index to Legal Periodicals Retrospective that now goes back ten years further to 1908. Art Index, Education Index, Humanities & Social Sciences Index, and Readers' Guide had all been released as retrospective collections previously.

Wilson products were already pretty solid under the hood thanks chiefly to its All-Smart Search system, a rules-based search that benefits from Wilson's meticulous attention to indexing in order to produce relevant and accurate search results. Recent upgrades have put additional capabilities into the searcher's hands. First, there's a new SDI alert system. There is also a new approach to displaying results that lets the searcher view a full-text page image in one window while keeping the results list in view in another. Search histories are more detailed, and the ability to format references in specific citation styles and to export them into bibliographic management software applications has been added.

Wilson has also improved its OpenURL linking and added an inter­library loan feature that will automatically, and accurately, fill out a user's request form. Navigation, online help, and sorting have all been upgraded as well.

When we first looked at art resources (in Spring 2003 netConnect, 4/15/03), Wilson was offering access to the AMICO Library of images supplied by the Art Museum Consortium. AMICO ceased publication in mid-2005, and Wilson's response to the void was to launch the Art Museum Image Gallery (AMIG), which salvages most of AMICO's content and integrates it into the WilsonWeb system.

With 21 North American museums, plus the Library of Congress, contributing to this resource, AMIG includes nearly 100,000 high-quality, high-resolution images from both the fine arts (paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, and photographs) as well as the decorative arts (textiles, jewelry, ceramics, furniture, glassware, books, and archaeological artifacts). Like its predecessor, AMIG includes images from as early as 3000 B.C.E. through the present, with an ample component of modern and contemporary art. African, Asian, European, and North and South American artists and their works are all represented.

AMIG's images are “rights-cleared” for educational use, which means that students may incorporate them into their research papers and class presentations and instructors may freely display them during class lectures and incorporate them into password-protected web sites.

Searchability The transition from AMICO to AMIG means the revised product is fully integrated into the WilsonWeb search interface. Searchers can access images in the database by artist (i.e., by name, nationality, and birthplace) and title of the work, as well as by the owner of the piece and the date it was created. They can also search by subject, materials used, technique employed, and object type.

Results include a description of the image, curatorial text, provenance information, and, in many cases, detailed and/or multiple views of the image. Records for many images are also enhanced by the inclusion of multimedia files.

Finally, the Wilson makeover means that AMIG searches may be run simultaneously in any of Wilson's other databases. Arts researchers accessing AMIG, Art Full Text, and Art Index Retrospective, for example, would have a very powerful and all-encompassing tool at their disposal.

Price An annual subscription starts at $1000 for a single user, with pricing for additional users based on level of access desired. Librarians may request a free 30-day trial.

Who Needs It? The obvious answer is anyone—at any level in the educational system, really—who is interested in art history, studio arts, or design. Wilson stresses that this is a resource that could also readily serve the interests of students and teachers of cultural studies, area studies, archaeology, classics, history, religious studies, and literature, too. We might add history of science and technology to this list, along with museum studies and library science courses in rare books and manuscripts.

JSTOR
JSTOR

Content As a refresher, JSTOR (Journal Storage project) is a nonprofit organization that provides an electronic database of 564+ full-text, full-image back issues. Established in 1995, JSTOR's original intent was to alleviate the space issue that libraries were facing with long runs of back files of scholarly journals. A “moving wall” (specified by publishers with ranges generally from three to five years) is usually associated with each title, preventing access to current full-text content. With both multidisciplinary and discipline-specific collections (12 in all), JSTOR offers institutions collections that best match their user ­populations.

The entire JSTOR archive includes all five Arts & Sciences Collections, the General Science Collection, and the Biological Sciences Collection (launched in June 2005). Subscribers to the Arts & Sciences I, II, III, and IV Collections and the General Science Collection (soon to be renamed Health & General Sciences) receive all the titles in the Business, Language & Literature, Mathematics & Statistics, and Music Collections. Subscribers to the Biological Sciences Collection receive all the titles in the Ecology & Botany Collection. ­JSTOR offers a slightly different model for public libraries, with two collections, one focusing on the arts and humanities and one focusing on the sciences.

Some interesting statistics: JSTOR includes nearly 700 participating journals (not all are online yet), with 19 million pages. There are nearly three million articles from 350 publishers and 38 subject areas.

New features include an interface called JSTOR XML Gateway, created to facilitate better federated searching with other library holdings. JSTOR has partnered with two content providers (Muse and AnthroSource) to link older issues of titles archived by JSTOR with the recent issues published online. Users can now search and browse for articles in the recent issues in addition to searching the full text for past articles in JSTOR, and with institutional subscription access users can link to current full-text articles. Initially intended for public search engines, JSTOR will soon release a “crawl site” to enable indexing of full-text articles. Similar to the Google Book Search model, it will allow users not authorized to access full-text articles to view citations and abstracts (if present) and, when possible, to preview a first page of an article.

As part of a large-scale retrospective conversion initiative, JSTOR has just completed a major project with the journal Science to bring its digitization standards up to current specifications.

Searchability Users can browse or search for material. A Browse by Discipline page clearly organizes the journals for quick scanning by subject matter or title specificity. The new features of the search engine are significant, and searching has gotten better, with Basic, Advanced, and Expert, as well as Article Locator options. The new Basic Search allows searching of all content in the archive (articles, reviews, etc.)

The Advanced mode is extremely user-friendly and lets searchers enter keywords, phrases, exclude terms, and limit to full text, as well as narrow to specific fields, document type, date range, discipline, or journal title(s). With Expert, one can enter a search query using standard Boolean operators, field delimiters, and JSTOR search syntax. If that's not enough, try proximity operators, relevance boosting, or fuzzy searching for precision and fine-tuning.

Articles may be printed with either the proprietary JPRINT software or Adobe Acrobat Reader. Printing/downloading options include an accessibility (TIFF) option, High or Economy PDF, and Postscript format. Articles and citations have durable URLs for later use in bibliographies, syllabi, or other web pages.

Pricing Pricing is based on the Carnegie Classification for academic libraries; population served, budget, and journal subscriptions for public libraries; and special classification for secondary schools and museums. Fees include an Archive Capital Fee (one-time) and an Annual Access Fee for each collection.

Who needs it? Everyone, of course! ­JSTOR has filled a very essential need–although the jury is still out on what institutions are doing regarding overlapping print titles. It appears that as many libraries have decided to discard as those choosing storage either remotely or as part of a consortial/regional agreement. The answer goes deeper than just a space issue: with access to vast back runs of scholarly material, broad subject content, and improved interface and search engine functionality, JSTOR has proven to be a major contender in the field.

Naxos Music Library, Naxos Music Library Jazz, Naxos Spoken Word Library
Naxos Online Libraries

SheetMusicNow
Sheet Music Now.com

Content Since our first look at the Naxos Music Library (NML) (Spring 2004 netConnect, 4/15/04), the company has further enhanced its reputation by adding the 2005 Classic FM/Gramophone Label of the Year Award to its résumé. In recognizing Naxos for this award, Gramophone editor James Jolly noted the ever-increasing number of Editor's Choice classical CDs and praised the label for “filling in corners of the repertoire that other companies leave untouched,” adding that its “electronic and online presence with Naxos Web Radio and the Naxos Music Library show that the label's visionary zeal remains as acute as ever.”

We concur. For starters, NML subscribers can explore virtually every facet of the classical music repertoire and nearly every corner of the globe through the World, folk, New Age, and contemporary jazz recordings that complement the Naxos classical holdings and the East Asian music from the Marco Polo label. The Milken Archive of American Jewish Music has been added to the basic subscription as well. Currently, some 8800 CD titles represent the combined output of Naxos, Marco Polo, and nearly two dozen independent labels. Performances are first rate and so is sound quality. So how do you improve upon a resource that is already this good?

Naxos turned inside to its own audiobook label, and outside to one source—SheetMusicNow—that complemented the core NML resources and to a second—the Fantasy label and its well-respected subsidiaries such as Milestone, Prestige, and Riverside—that took NML even more boldly in the direction of jazz.

The Naxos Spoken Word Library currently offers subscribers access to over 340 books from 200 authors. It includes classic works of literature, drama, and poetry from the medieval period through the 20th century, plus a growing roster of nonfiction titles. The text of most of the recordings displays on screen while the audio plays and may be printed out.

Naxos Music Library Jazz—with the work of over 500 musicians represented on 1850 albums—will have jazz lovers drooling. Fantasy was an aggregator, in effect, and eventually over 20 labels—record companies responsible for releasing some of the most brilliant work of the most visionary voices in jazz—spun in Fantasy's orbit. Albums that jazz aficionados worship—Brilliant Corners by Monk, Afro Blue Impressions by Coltrane, and Workin', Steamin', Cookin', and Relaxin' by Miles Davis—are all part of this library (and so is Creedence Clearwater Revival plus a nice mix of blues and R&B). Unfortunately, because of licensing issues, original liner notes are not reproduced.

Complementing the classical and jazz offerings is the SheetMusicNow collection of 15,000 sheet music editions from a variety of well-regarded publishers.

Searchability The first route into the collections is the alphabetical Browse/Search mode. Accessing a specific piece or composer is somewhat tedious this way, however, given the sheer volume of classical and jazz libraries' contents. The Advanced Search template remains a bit overwhelming as well. While the search options for the three NML libraries vary with the content, the interface is consistent enough that users will have no difficulty moving from NML to Jazz or Spoken Word .

We searched SheetMusicNow via its own web site to get a taste of its contents and navigability. A search on hildegard von bingen produced a list of 40 editions from a variety of different publishers. A search on monk as Composer produced numerous hits on “'Round Midnight,” including the Lead Sheet, Piano/Vocal/Chords parts, and Guitar Tab/Vocal sheet music. There is no Mac version of the SheetMusicNow reader. The Naxos products run on both Mac and Windows platforms. MARC records for 3900 Naxos titles are priced at $875, which makes the library OPAC another search option.

Price Annual subscription pricing for NML starts at $750 for five simultaneous users and progresses to $3750 for unlimited access. Considering that subscribers at the $750 level will be adding the equivalent of nearly 250 new classical CD titles per year at just a shade over $3 each, we should probably note that the only better deal in the online music universe involves some risk of jail time. The NML Plus package, which includes the Fantasy Jazz catalog, adds $60 per user to the annual rate, and the Spoken Word Library costs $50 per user. The Streaming Upgrade costs 50 percent above the subscription price.

Pricing for the SheetMusicNow collection is based on institution size. Subscriptions start at $1500 for schools below the 2000 FTE level and top off at $1750 when the count exceeds 4000. There is a 15 percent discount if SheetMusicNow is bundled with NML .

Who Needs It? When we first made the point that NML—with its daring and expansive coverage of the classical repertoire and heralded performance quality—is a much better music collection than most libraries could manage to assemble from scratch, we had no idea that Naxos could improve on the original in such dramatic fashion. Right from its initial release, Naxos Music Library was one of the most impressive products we had ever reviewed, but with an exquisite jazz archive, an acclaimed spoken word library, and an invaluable sheet music collection added to the mix, about all we can do is recalibrate our standard for excellence and hope that we can upgrade our subscription.

Periodicals Archive Online (formerly PCI Full Text), Periodicals Index Online (formerly PCI)
ProQuest Information & Learning Co.

Content Initially we thought that two new collections and search enhancements would sum up the latest changes to these products. Little did we know there would be a good deal more. First and foremost are the new names. PCI is now Periodicals Index Online (PIO), and PCI Full Text has become Periodicals Archive Online (PAO). Existing subscribers will be redirected to the appropriate new database.

Together these two products provide access to a growing archive of nearly 16 million article citations from over 4700 journals in the arts, humanities, and social sciences and 400+ journals in full archival format. Touted as the largest index in the humanities and social sciences, PIO covers nearly 40 subject areas from Agriculture to Women's Studies, with content back to 1665. Its 44 languages include Afrikaans, Hausa, and Urdu. Subscribers to both products can seamlessly retrieve full-text content available in the Archive as well as content in Muse and JSTOR or through their own link-resolver systems, while searching the Index.

Currently, PAO provides access to over 8.9 million article pages—representing 1.4+ million articles. The database is expected to grow to 475+ journals during 2006, allowing access to a growing collection of the “most historically respected journals in the humanities and social sciences.” Coverage extends from 1802 through 1995, and titles in PAO can be purchased as collections for permanent ownership and online access. There are currently four complete general collections, I and II with full-page images and index records; III and IV include full-page images and index records and also have searchable full text. The first journals from V have just been made available. When complete, this collection will also feature searchable full text. Eventually, the earlier collections will have the same search enhancements. Unique foreign-language coverage is available in each collection. Four themed collections are also available: History, Literature, Philosophy & Religion/Theology, and Spanish Language. All of the titles in the themed collections are also included in the General Collections.

Enhanced functionality includes free MARC records, Z39.50 support for federated searching, OpenURL compliance, citation software support, durable URLs, and usage statistics.

Searchability Both databases feature a new search engine, and the interface is simple and easy to navigate. A Quick Search featured on each page is a convenient option for all. This allows users to conduct straightforward queries throughout each session via a range of predefined options. For more detailed searching try Article Search, with a full array of options available, or Find Journals, where users can search or browse by title, language, or subject. Users can also access the Search Journal Records page from this screen. Search results are returned with a set of filters that can be used to refine and narrow a query.

A My Archive feature lets users create their own research area by saving searches, marked records, and notes taken between sessions. Access is password-protected, and information is stored for future use.

Enhancements include summary information about the results of each query. This information (e.g., a list of journals that contain the greatest number of results matching the search criteria, or the most common languages of articles found) can then be used to filter and narrow the list of results. Users with access to both databases can restrict searches to just full text or search across the entire PIO index. All search modes are always available in the navigation toolbar as well as Context-sensitive Help.

Pricing Subscription prices are based on FTE count for academic institutions, population served for public and corporate settings, particular collection package, and buying group discounts. Free trials are available.

Who needs it? Bravo for the upgrade. The collection of scholarly titles as well as journals of historical interest will appeal to a broad spectrum of researchers, and digitized access to a full-text archive only makes it sweeter. With a brand new interface, search enhancements, improved features and tools, searchable full text, and new collections, these two products have only gotten better. PAO and PIO certainly deserve an opportunity to wow your patrons.