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Review from: The Charleston Advisor,
April 2006
Review from Legal Information Alert,
January 2005
Review from: The Charleston Advisor,
April 2006
Product Description
This retrospective database indexes over 750 legal periodicals published
in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, and New
Zealand. Annual surveys of the laws of a jurisdiction, annual surveys of
the federal courts, yearbooks, annual institutes, and annual reviews of
the work in a given field or on a given topic are also covered. The
database provides citations and selected “contents notes” that are similar
to abstracts but not as detailed.
Critical Evaluation
Search Interface: The Wilson search interface is straightforward,
user-friendly, and uses terms that patrons should understand….On the left
of the screen are buttons for Advanced Search; Basic Search; Browse;
Search History; Thesaurus; Print-Email-Save. Having all of those options
in one place is much easier for users than spreading the options out
across the search screen, as some vendors do. Our library’s tradition is
to have all search interfaces default to the Advanced Search; for
libraries that have chosen the Basic Search as the default, the fact that
the Advanced Search button appears first on the list of options might
encourage users to take advantage of the advanced options.
The list of databases available to the
library is shown prominently at the top of the search screen; it is also
possible to hide the list. When the list is closed or hidden an indication
at the top of the screen shows which database is selected.
The search screen prominently displays the
limiting options, such as limit by date or by type of publication, near
the top of the screen. This is another example of Wilson’s user-centered
design; some vendors place those limiters on the bottom of the screen,
making it necessary to scroll down to find them. Many, if not most, of the
patrons in my library have a hard time finding anything that requires them
to scroll to another screen.
The search screen uses the word “find” before the blank box where one
enters the search term, instead of “search” or other such terms. “Find” is
more likely to be understood by patrons than the other terms. Also, the
button one clicks to perform the search is labeled “start” instead of
“search.” (The user can also just press enter to start the search). Again,
Wilson uses terms that are likely to be understood by typical users.
A button at the bottom of the search screen allows the user to customize
the results display. Options include record display and sort options;
select fields to include in article and book records; and apply these
custom settings to (i.e., displayed records, printed records, etc.)
Searching
The basic search screen is very Google-esque; there is one blank box for
entering the search strategy. I performed a basic search for “presidential
powers” (without quotation marks) and retrieved 74 citations. As in
Google, when I added quotation marks to the presidential powers search,
there were fewer results: 3 citations
26 Advisor Reviews / The Charleston Advisor /April 2006
www.charlestonco.co were retrieved. The basic search therefore uses the
Google search mechanism: understood Boolean OR if the words are entered
with no punctuation; phrase searching if parentheses are used. This
emulation of Google searching is good for patrons who are interested only
in the most basic search.
Advanced searching provides many options. Fields available for searching
include keyword, subject, title, author, personal, court cases, document
type, historical subject, ISSN, journal issue, and journal name. Boolean
operators AND, OR, and NOT are available. I used the Boolean AND to add
“Roosevelt” to my “presidential powers” search. The results went from 74
citations to 1. A good feature of the Advanced
Search is that search terms are maintained as the searcher goes back and
forth among various screens. After searching for presidential powers, I
clicked on the Advanced search from the results screen on the left of the
interface. When it took me back to the Advanced screen, it had maintained
presidential powers in the search box. Some databases do not have this
feature and assume that when the searcher clicks on
Basic or Advanced Search, he intends to begin a completely new search. I
find this Wilson feature of maintaining the search terms to be very
useful….
Results Display
The results display is clean and easy to read. The Article Linker
OpenURL link appears consistently along the left of the screen––no need to
find it in different spots with the citation…The brief display of article
author, title, and citation appears to be the default. The full record
includes the language of the document, subject, document type, and
persistent URL. Abstracts are not included, but “contents notes” are
included for selected records.
Historic Content
Access to historic legal resources is vital. Current law builds on
previous cases, reasoning, and arguments. Index to Legal Periodicals
Retrospective includes historic content that previously was not readily
searchable online. HeinOnline, a collaboration among William S. Hein and
Co. Inc., Cornell Law Library and Cornell Information Technologies,
<http://heinonline/org/>, has been available since 2000 and covers
thousands of legal journals since their inception. However, HeinOnline
does not have a sophisticated search engine like Wilson’s and relies on
full-text searching. Thus, with this online version of the print index,
Wilson has fulfilled the legal research community’s need for historic
legal content….
Contract Provisions
The license agreement seems pretty standard. See the Web site <http://www.hwwilson.com/abouthw/artretroWeblic.htm>.
One good feature is a specific definition of on-site and remote authorized
users….
Authentication
Authentication is possible either via IP address or by user name and
password.
Index to Legal Periodicals
Retrospective: 1908–1981
Review Scores Composite:
****⅛
The maximum number of stars in each category is 5.
Content:
****
This database fills a huge gap in online legal research. Previously, there
was no easy online access to legal content prior to 1980. Wilson
contributes to filling that gap with this very important database.
Searchability:
***½
The search interface is easy to use and incorporates terminology that
users are likely to understand….
Pricing Options:
****
Pricing is reasonable, and flexible options are possible.
Contract Options:
****
The license agreement is standard for the most part. The specific
definition of authorized users, both on-campus and remote, is a very good
feature….
Reviewed by: Janice G. Schuster,
Coordinator of reference services and reference librarian at Providence
College in Providence, Rhode Island.
Review from Legal Information Alert,
January 2005
All together now: let's all breathe a sigh
of relief. Finally, the H.W. Wilson Company (Wilson) has helped to fill a
significant gap in the online legal research universe….This meant that
until recently, online searching of older articles prior to 1980 was out
of the question, unless HeinOnline carried the articles. Even then, you
needed to rely on the vagaries of full text database retrieval and your
own skills as a researcher to find what you needed. Thus, one thing that
was missing was an online version of the Wilson index.
What was missing was access to human
indexing. Sometimes learned, standardized evaluation yields a better
system of access to material and a superior method of conducting research.
What may be missed using full text online searching can often be found
using a good print index. Well, it has finally happened. Wilson recently
released a retrospective version of ILP. As usual, it is a pricey tool,
but not as much as many others. And, arguably, it is more important and
useful than most.
The interface of the index is fine. It uses
a rather typical Web search format, and its use is intuitive. Therefore,
it works well, and anyone familiar with searching on the Web can easily
figure out how to use the database. The database can be accessed via
user-name and password or via IP authentication. Both methods works very
well, and the access speed is excellent….
Wilson's ILP Retrospective provides one
outstanding feature that is certain to make it an indispensable research
tool. With search results, icons appear to the left of the article that
provide links to the entire text of the articles, book reviews, or
additional information about your search whenever they are available.
Wilson has wisely signed an agreement with HeinOnline to provide links to
available full text articles. However, there is a minor flaw in the
linking. When you click on the HeinOnline link, you are not taken to the
article itself; rather you are directed to the first page of the issue in
which your article appears. So, in this case, you must remember the exact
page reference of your article, and you have to use HeinOnline's somewhat
clunky interface to get to the article.
Access to full text sources increases the
utility of having the index available online substantially. Given the long
need to have the index available, having access to the full text article
is merely frosting on the cake.
The price for Wilson's ILP Retrospective is
good news, too. It is being marketed to academic libraries on a sliding
scale depending on the number of students in your student body. However,
for a school of our size (450 students), the full price with a
subscription to the newer ILP is about $13,000. There are deep discounts
available for individuals and consortia. The cost is also a one-time
purchase with an ongoing 5% maintenance fee. (I am told that if Wilson
ever folds, or if a purchaser really wanted it, purchasers may be entitled
to "tapes" or other appropriate media containing the ILP Retrospective
database.) Of course, the cost for the current ILP is an ongoing
subscription fee.
Another observation is in order here. While
there has not been a history of rivalry between Hein and Wilson, it is
safe to say that in the world of legal publishing, partnerships are sadly
very rare. This arrangement between Wilson and Hein in the execution of
this product is a welcome one. It is a perfect example of the way two
publishers can work together and create a superior product. It is good for
researchers/customers and good for the publishers.
Overall, this is a job well done!
Reviewed by: Richard A. Leiter, Director of
the library at the University of Nebraska Law School.
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