ABCCLIO Overview of Historical Abstracts

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ABC-CLIOOverview of Historical
Abstracts Historical coverage of the world from
1450 to the present(excluding the United States
and Canada) http//serials.abc-clio.com
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This guide is designed to help you

• Familiarize yourself with the database
• Build a simple and advanced search
• Understand and use the results of your searches

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• What is Historical Abstracts?
• The complete reference guide to the history of
  the world (excluding the U.S. and Canada) from
  1450 to the present

• Published since 1955
• Covers over 2,000 academic journals in more than
  40 languages
• Includes over 713,000 entries, with more than
  22,000 new abstracts and citations of journal
  articles, books, and dissertations added annually
• Full-text links to over 131,000 articles
  available from JSTOR, History Cooperative,
  University of California Press, ProjectMUSE,
  Oxford University Press, Taylor Francis
  journals, Swets Blackwell, and Ingenta

• Links to 18 free journals including H-Net
  Reviews, Journal for Multimedia History, Irish
  Geography, Screening the Past, North Star, and
  many more

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What type of information will I find in
Historical Abstracts?

• Each year, approximately 2,000 journals are
  screened for articles and books of interest to
  historians
• The database contains a selection of hundreds of
  journals in the social sciences and humanities
  for use by those in other areas of study
• As each journal is screened entries are created
  and loaded into the database
• Full-text links from partners that include JSTOR,
  Project Muse and ProQuest allow users to link
  directly from the abstract to over 131,000
  articles, book reviews, dissertations, and theses

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The Search Screen

• There are two types of searches Basic and
  Advanced
• Basic Search contains the Keyword and Subject
  Term search fields
• Advanced Search contains the basic search fields
  as well as seven additional fields (see next
  slide for detail)
• To switch between the search screens, use the
  Advanced/Basic button on the navigation bar
• Customize the search screen by adding or removing
  various search fields from the screen
• Further refine your search results by limiting to
  a particular type of entry

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The Search Fields

• There are a total of nine search fields to choose
  from
• Keyword
• Subject Term
• Author/Editor
• Title
• Language
• Journal Name
• Publication Date
• Time Period
• Entry Number
• Roll the cursor over the name of a field for a
  description and examples
• Select the book icon located next to the search
  field to select terms for searching or as an
  index of terms

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Using the Search Fields

• Do NOT use punctuation in any search field
• The Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT are
  available in each field

• OPERATOR AND RESULTS Retrieves entries
  containing the first term AND the second term
  (The AND operator is assumed if there are no
  operators placed between multiple terms in a
  field)
• OPERATOR OR RESULTS Retrieves entries
  containing the first term OR the second term
• OPERATOR NOT RESULTS Retrieves entries that do
  NOT contain the term that follows

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Using the Search Fields

• WILDCARD
• RESULTS If the exact spelling of a word is
  unknown, insert an asterisk () for an
  indeterminate number of unknown letters
• EX Archiv retrieves entries with the terms
  archive, archives, archival, etc.
• WILDCARD ?
• RESULTS If the exact spelling of a word is
  unknown, insert a question mark (?) for each
  unknown letter
• EX Wom?n retrieves entries with the terms
  woman and women

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Using the Search Fields
Please keep these hints in mind when using the
search fields

• FIELD KeywordsDEFINITION A word or term that
  is located in any part of an entry. A keyword
  search is the broadest type of search and
  results in the most entries
• FIELD Subject TermsDEFINITION Selected by the
  database editors, these terms are directly
  related to the content of an entry. Each entry
  has one or more subject terms associated with
  it. A subject search will retrieve more focused
  results.TIP The index of search terms contains
  a list of all terms found in the database,
  along with the number of times its found in
  all entries. Use it to expand your search to
  related terms

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Using the Search Fields

• FIELD Author
• DEFINITION Retrieves articles by
  author/editor name
• TIP Enter author name, first or last, in any
  order. Do not include punctuation
• EX John Williams retrieves all articles with
  John and Williams in author field including
  those coauthored by J. Breen and John Williams
• FIELDTitles/Translations
• DEFINITION Only retrieves entries in which the
  selected words are present in the title or title
  translation
• FIELD Languages
• DEFINITION Use this field to limit your search
  to entries in specific languages. A blank field
  will retrieve results in all languages

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Using the Search Fields

• FIELD Journal Names
• DEFINITION Retrieves entries that contain all
  or part of the journal title
• TIP The journal index contains a list of all
  journals covered in the database along with the
  number of entries covered
• TIP For a complete list of all journals
  covered in both databases, select Journal List
  from the navigation bar
• FIELD Publication Dates
• DEFINITION Enter a four-digit year that
  corresponds to the entrys publication date
• FIELD Entry Numbers
• DEFINITION Retrieves entries matching those in
  the printed version of the index
• EX 30134 retrieves entry 134 from vol. 30

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Using the Search Fields
FIELD Time Periods DEFINITION The time period
field refers to the span of time covered in the
article, not to the publication date
TIP Enter one or more round dates, followed
by either an H (for Hundreds Centuries) or a
D (for Decades) EX 1800H OR 1900H retrieves
any records dealing with either the 19th or
20th centuries EX 1900H AND 2000H retrieves
records that cover BOTH the 20th and 21st
centuries TIP To search for a range of
dates, you must enter each decade or century
individually EX 1900D OR 1910D OR 1920D
will retrieve records covering 1900-1929
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Running a Search

• Before running a search, use the Display Options
  fields to customize the results by
• Selecting the number of entries displayed per
  page
• Sorting the results, in ascending or descending
  order, in the following fields
• Author
• Date
• Journal Name
• Language Type
• Automatically tagging all search results for easy
  export

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Interpreting Your Results

• The results to your search will automatically
  display as short records
• Short records include the following fields
• Type of Entry
• Author/Editor
• Entry Title
• Citation
• To expand a record, click the Expand Record link
  located in the lower right-hand corner of each
  short entry display
• Expanded Records include the following fields
• Abstract
• Time Period
• Language
• Keyword Terms
• Entry Number

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Interpreting Your Results

• If full-text links for an entry are available,
  they will appear in the short entry display. To
  access the full-text article online, click on
  the link
• If full-text links are not available, use the
  resource links to check availability at up to
  two local catalogs or the online catalog of the
  Library of Congress
• OpenURL links and an InterLibrary Loan Request
  form are also available
• To email a single record, enter an email
  address in the Email To field located in each
  entry
• To email multiple records, see the Export
  Options slide

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Refining Your Search

• Use the following tips to help refine your
  search
• Expand the Search Details to see a
  step-by-step record of the search process
• Use the Refine Search link on the Navigation
  toolbar to return to the Search Screen
• The search fields that were filled out for the
  current search will remain intact
• The Search History link on the Search Screen
  allows you to rerun previous searches (within a
  single search session)
• Clicking on the link will automatically rerun the
  search

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Exporting Your Results

• Use the export options screen to print, email, or
  manage select entries
• First, select the type of entry to export
• Next, select which entries to export
• Finally, select Output Type
• Create a printer friendly version using ASCII
  Display
• Export to a spreadsheet by selecting
  Tab-Delimited Display
• Select RefWorks to export entries to an
  individual or institution account
• Select ProCite, EndNote, or Reference Manager to
  export to a citation manager
• Send your results to one or more recipients by
  filling in the To field with addresses (separate
  multiple addresses with a space)

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ClioNotes

• Dont know where to begin your search? Use
  ClioNotes to get started
• Provides guided searching to ensure targeted
  results
• Organized by region and time period
• Browse chronologies and brief summaries of
  significant events and themes in world history
• Suggested research topics and easy-to-use search
  tools, provided within each topic area, allow you
  to research the entire database for articles,
  books, collections, and dissertations

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Personal Profile

• Receive automatic notification of new database
  entries with Personal Profile
• Monthly email updates contain the short-entry
  displays of any new entries matching your
  specific search criteria
• Save up to ten different profiles
• Search America History and Life and/or
  Historical Abstracts simultaneously
• Construct each alert using the Subject Terms,
  Author, Time Period, Language, and Document
  Type fields
• To ensure success with a profile, use search
  criteria that have proven effective for searches
• Access the profile screens via the link on the
  search screen

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Help/Support

• There are multiple places to turn within the
  database for help
• Roll your mouse over the Help button in the
  navigation bar for a pop-up containing some
  quick tips
• For more detailed help, select the User Guide
  or More Help links within the pop-up
• You may also request email support using the
  links available at the bottom of every page
• For assistance with searching or to report
  content errors, select Content Support"
• For site-related technical problems, select
  "Technical Support"
• To visit our discussion forum, select "Forum
  Support

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Awards and Reviews
Outstanding Academic Title 1999 -
CHOICE "America History and Life and Historical
Abstracts are the standard, preeminent indexes
available in historical research. (If you had any
doubts about this, witness the desire of others
to partner with them to gain access to their
content.) So any librarypublic, academic,
historical, or high schoolthat can afford these
two should provide access to them." -
NetConnect In today's marketplace, there are few
bibliographic databases of which it can be said
that there are no true competitors ... America
History and Life (AHL), taken with its companion
database Historical Abstracts (HA), is one of
thesetogether these two products form the
largest bibliographic database currently
available in the field of history ... In sum, the
Web versions of both AHL and HA are highly
recommended for all academic libraries." -
Electronic Resources Review