During the first week of term, I’m going to revisit some of my earlier posts, to remind you of some useful tools for philosophical research.  Today, I’ll be looking at databases.  All of the following can be located and accessed via HOLLIS, using your Harvard ID and PIN.  I will organize the list according to the classification scheme that I outlined last year.

Citation Databases

• Arts & Humanities Citation Index (and a note about an update.)
• Philosopher’s Index

Full-Text Archival Databases

• JSTOR (and a note about an update.)
  

Full-Text Current Databases

• POIESIS (and an update.)
  
• Project MUSE (and a note about an update.)
• Social Science Research (which includes the Humanities Research Network and the Philosophy Research Network)
• Science Direct
• Wiley Interscience (which includes the former Blackwell materials)

Hybrid Databases

• Academic Search Premier (and a note about an update.)

This list makes no claims to be exclusive or exhaustive.  These databases are merely the ones that you will most commonly use when doing philosophical research.  Depending on your area(s) of interest and study, you may want to consider other, more specialized databases as well, e.g., LexisNexis Academic, PubMed, or the Science Citation Index.  If so, please let me know, and I’ll be happy to direct you to them, and show you how to use them.

This morning, I was asked a question about accessing Philosophy Compass, formerly published by Blackwell, but now part of Wiley-Interscience.

If you are at Harvard, all you will need is your PIN and ID to access the Philosophy Compass.  If you search “philosophy compass” in HOLLIS, setting the search parameters to “title,” you’ll turn up the record, which lists the URL for the database.

However, you will not be able to access the articles at the present time.  As former Blackwell content, the Philosophy Compass is part of the migration of that content over to the Wiley-Interscience platform that began about two weeks ago.  Unfortunately, the migration of the content did not go as smoothly as planned, and there are a number of items that are currently unavailable, the Philosophy Compass being one of them.

I do not know when this will be available again.  Wiley is moving as quickly as possible to migrate the content and make it available — no small feat when over 1.6 million articles are involved.  I will keep checking back to see if the Philosophy Compass is available, and will let you know.  I will also let you know about some of the features of the new platform.

Please don’t hesitate to let me know if you have any questions about this.

Update 14 July 2008: Access to Philosophy Compass has been restored.  You are now able to download articles without being charged.

As announced last week, the database, Synergy, will no longer be available after tomorrow, 27 June 2008.  All content will be moved over to Wiley Interscience, and will be again available on 1 July 2008. You should be able to access the electronic versions of the relevant journals via HOLLIS then.

Please plan your research accordingly!

As part of the merger of Blackwell Publishing with John Wiley and Sons, we will combine all Wiley-Blackwell’s online products onto a single online platform.  From the Wiley-Blackwell site:

As a first step, we will be moving all Blackwell Synergy journal content and access rights onto Wiley InterScience as of June 30, 2008, at which point Synergy will cease to be available. As a second step, we will be launching a next-generation online service in 2009 that will include the best features of both Blackwell Synergy and Wiley InterScience and which will introduce innovative new functionality and capabilities.

From the e-mail I received this morning:

As of Monday, June 30th 2008, all Blackwell journal content—including all full-text HTML and PDF versions of articles from current issues, backfiles, and issues published online before print—will be incorporated into Wiley InterScience.

We plan to close Blackwell Synergy at the end of business (Pacific Standard Time) on Friday June 27th and we anticipate that the migration will be completed by Monday June 30th. Over the weekend of June 28th and 29th, there will be a period when both Blackwell Synergy and Wiley InterScience will be unavailable while we transition and re-index data.

We will still have access to all of the journals — the only change is that they will be on a different platform with a different interface.  Once the move has been made, I will review the new platform and write a post about it.

In the interim, please let me know if you have any questions.

What it is

Synergy is Blackwell’s database of journals. According to the Synergy home page, the database is “the home of over 1 million articles from over 850 journals.”

Strengths

• The database is home to current issues of nearly 40 philosophy journals, including, but not limited to:
  • Analysis
  • Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society
  • Philosophical Quarterly
  • Midwest Studies in Philosophy
  • Philosophy & Phenomenological Research.

Limitations

• I have found that the graphics used on Synergy are large and clunky. They will slow down your searching if your computer has low memory, or if you have a slow Internet connection.

Using Synergy

Here is how to access journals in Synergy:

1. The most obvious way is to search for the journal in HOLLIS and go directly to Synergy via the link in the catalog record.

But, say you want to browse through Synergy, or do some broader research within the database. Here’s how to go about doing it:

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 “synergy”
3. In the results list, you’ll see both “Synergy” and “Synergy (Online).” Click on either link, as they are the same record.
4. You will see two links: click on either one to get to the Synergy home page.
5. From there, you have three choices:
   1. Browsing I: On the home page, in the center of the page, you will see a listing of “All Journals by Subject,” with a short list of the broad subject categories. Click on “Humanities,” which should open up a list of sub-categories. Click on “Philosophy” to see a complete list of all the journals listed in this sub-category. From here, you should be able to link directly to the journal(s) you’re interested in viewing. Please see slides 1 and 2 of the attached PDF file for screen shots.
   2. Browsing II: On the home page, and on other search pages, you’ll see a “Quick Link” option in the right-hand corner. Here, you can select a journal from a drop-down menu, and go directly to it. You can also add in volume number, issue number, and year, if you know that as well. Please see slide 3 of the attached PDF file for a screen shot.
   3. Searching: Also in the right-hand corner of the home page is the “Quick Search” option. This is useful for doing broader searches, as well as searches for specific articles. My preference is to go right away to the “Advanced Search” option. When you get to the Advanced Search page, enter in your information. My only suggestion for this page is to change the “Order by:” option from “Relevance” to “Date (latest first)”. Why? Because it’s not clear what algorithm the database is using to determine the relevancy of articles. What is relevant to Synergy may not be so for you, and vice versa. I personally find it easier to scroll through a list of articles in reverse chronological order (i.e., the newest material is first), but you may not find it so. Please see slides 4 and 5 of the attached PDF file for screen shots.

Summary

Synergy is a great database to use if you’re looking for current articles and research in philosophy. Used in conjunction with Philosopher’s Index, JSTOR, and Academic Search Premier, it can broaden the amount of research available to you immensely.

Update, 6/19/2009: As of 30 June 2008, Synergy will cease to exist.  All content will be merged with the Wiley Interscience platform, and loaded there.  More information about the merger is available here.