Robbins Library Notes

Good morning! As promised, this week’s Database Overview will review Arts & Humanities Citation Index.

What it is

Arts & Humanities Citation Index is a citation database covering publications in all fields in the arts and humanities back to 1975. As the Thomson.com description, notes, “The Arts & Humanities Citation Index® (A&HCI ®) and Arts & Humanities Search® provide access to current and retrospective bibliographic information and cited references found in nearly 1,130 of the world’s leading arts & humanities journals. They also cover individually selected, relevant items from approximately 7,000 of the world’s leading science and social sciences journals.” It is a good database to use in conjunction with Philosopher’s Index, to cover any gaps or omissions that the former may have.

Strengths

• Multi-disciplinary searches. Arts & Humanities Citation Index allows its users to perform multi-disciplinary searches quickly.
• Comprehensive coverage. The database covers thousands of sources back to the mid 1970s, and even earlier, if combined with Social Sciences Citation Index or Science Citation Index.
• Article citations. Users can easily tell how many times an item has been cited in the database.
• Sorting and Filtering Results. Results can be easily sorted and filtered by source, subject, and author.

Limitations

• The advanced searching function is a bit tricky, as users must learn how to combine the two-letter code and Boolean search style that is used in this database. However, the search style is consistent across all of the five search options in the database, and examples are given in every search screen, so it is relatively easy to use, once you have developed some proficiency using it. Even better, if you use Arts & Humanities Citation Index’s sister databases, Social Sciences Citation Index or Science Citation Index, the search style is exactly the same, so you needn’t learn anything new.
• Like Philosopher’s Index, Arts & Humanities Citation Index is a citation database — thus, there is no full-text available from the database, though you will be able to link to full-text (where available) and HOLLIS records using the button.
• Also, like Philosopher’s Index, the database is not exclusive or exhaustive in coverage, so it should not be used alone, but, rather, in conjunction with another citation database. Don’t assume that, if you can’t find it here, that it doesn’t exist.

Using Arts & Humanities Citation Index

1. Go to the HOLLIS search page, and select the “Digital Resources” tab.
2. Set the “Search type” to “Title beginning with,” and the search terms to “arts and humanities citation index.”
3. In the results list, scroll down to “Arts and humanities citation index (Online),” and click on that link.
4. Clink on the Internet link in the record, and login with your ID and PIN.
5. There are five search options available to you in Arts & Humanities Citation Index when you get to the database home page. I will be referring to this attached file of screen shots as I go through each option to explain them.
   1. Quick Search. This is the default basic search, useful for large topics, where you’re trying to see what materials are available. As you can see on slide 3 of the attached file, you do have some options for limiters. I would recommend unchecking the boxes for the Social Sciences Citation Index and the Science Citation Index, unless you are doing research in those areas as well, e.g., philosophy of mind or psychology for the former, or philosophy of science or biology, for the latter.
   2. General Search. I recommend starting with this search option until you get a sense for using the database. Slides 5 and 6 show the default search features for this option. Note that examples of the database’s search format are included below each box, showing how terms are to be entered, what to use for wild card operators, and the like. You can also set the search to look only for research in specific languages, or of specific document types. One thing to be careful of in this search is entering in journal titles. The database is somewhat finicky about how it reads titles, and it’s not easy to locate the preferred format.
   3. Author Finder. Slides 8-12 outline this search option, which is useful for looking at what resources by a certain author are indexed in the database. Let’s look at an example:
      1. You want to see what articles written by Richard Moran are listed in Arts & Humanities Citation Index. So, logging into the database, you choose the Author Find link. From here, you will be walked through the four steps you need to generate a bibliography. On the first screen (slide 8), enter in the last name and first initial, i.e., “moran” and “r.” Click the “Next” button. On slide 9, you will see the option to expand or focus your search, by adding either a wild card operator (the “*”) or a middle initial, respectively. Since you don’t know his middle initial, and you don’t know if the database cites him with one, you decide to pick the wild card operator option — yes, the 618 sources look a bit daunting, but you’ll have the chance to refine the search a little more in the next two steps. In step three (slide 10), you can limit the results to subject categories. You limit the results to Arts & Humanities, with only 51 hits. Then, in step four (slide 11), you can limit the results by the institution(s) where the author is and/or was. Knowing that Moran was at Princeton before coming to Harvard, you check off both boxes, giving you ten results in total, some of which can be seen in slide 12. Note how you can see how many times his articles have been cited, and if full-text is available in the database, right next to the button.
   4. Cited Ref Search. This option, as slide 14 shows, is good for locating complete bibliographic information for a cited reference or author.
   5. Advanced Search. Slides 16-19 show an example of an advanced search. As I’ve noted, learning the search style takes a little work, but, once you’ve gotten the hang of it, you can stack terms with Boolean operators to make sophisticated and complex searches. Furthermore, you have the option of combining different searches into a larger “mega-search.” Slide 16 shows the default search options for the advanced search. Note that the code you’ll need to learn is always on the right side of the page. Furthermore, Boolean operators must always be capitalized — AND, OR, NOT, and so on. I’ve shown a search using the terms “kant” and “ethics” as topics. Note how I’ve set the search up: looking only at Arts & Humanities Citation Index, set to search as far back as possible for English-only articles. Slide 17 shows the initial results page, indicating that I have 96 hits. (Also visible here is the option to combine search strategies into larger searches by selecting the “Combine sets” option.) Clicking on the number 96, I get a list of results, as seen on slide 18. The default listing is 10 per page, but, since so few hits per page annoys me, I increase it to the maximum, which in this database is 50 per page — the drop-down menu to change this is just above the list of results. On the results page, you have the option of further refining the search, whether by subject category, source title, document type, author, and publication year. Clicking on any of the links (I’ve shown “Subject Categories” as an example) opens up a box menu, listing various items in descending order of occurrence, i.e., the number of articles in that category that came up from that search. You can check off any or all of the boxes, and click on the “View Records” button to see them, or “Exclude Records” to eliminate them. Slide 19 shows an example of some of the records from the search.
6. Log off. When you are finished using Arts & Humanities Citation Index, make sure to log off by clicking on the “LOG OFF” button in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. (Please see slide 21 for an example.) Why? Harvard only has a certain number of licenses to use this database, so, if you fail to log off, and the limit on users has been reached, another user will not be able to access the database until your cookie expires or you log off.

Summary

Arts & Humanities Citation Index is a good index to use when generating bibliographies and locating research on philosophical topics. Given that it is broader in scope than Philosopher’s Index, embracing all of the arts & humanities, and given that it is not exhausting or exclusive, it is a good idea to use this database in combination with Philosopher’s Index, and perhaps even Social Sciences Citation Index and Science Citation Index, depending on the topic or person you’re researching.