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The University of Pennsylvania's Online Computing Magazine

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November 1992 - Volume 9:3 [Printout | Contents | Search ] New in PennData: WILS Index By Patricia Renfro The Library now provides electronic answers to questions like these: What were the results of the April elections in Britain? (Answer: 336 seats for the Tories, 271 for Labour, and 20 for the Liberal Democrats) What is the name of Madonna's shoe designer? (Answer: Manolo Blahnik) Who claims credit for the discovery of Buckyballs, one of the most important scientific discoveries of the '80s? (Answer: Harold Kroto and Richard Smalley) ...and provides citations for: An interview with Jurgen Habermas on Sartre in Political Theory (Aug '92) Recent poems by Adrienne Rich (in publications such as Yale Review, Southwest Review, Ms., American Poetry Review, and Women's Studies) Reviews of Houston Baker's Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance in American Literature, Criticism, Research in African Literature, and The Southern Review An article by Jean-Michel Rabate on "modernisme anglo-saxon" in the Cahiers du Musee National d'Art Modern (1987) A collection of articles in Architectural Design on the First International Symposium on Deconstruction Reviews of laptop computers and related software Philip Arcidi's article "Graceful Landing," on Penn's ICA as a work of architecture If you've logged in to library during the past month, you'll have noticed that the list of databases is growing. The latest PennData addition is WILS--an index of more than 1,500 core journals (primarily English language) in the arts, humanities, social sciences, and applied science and technology. The database, produced by the veteran indexing company H. W. Wilson (hence WILS), is the electronic version of five print indexes which have, for many years, provided citations to articles in key journals in a wide variety of disciplines (see below). WILS has a number of important features and adds significantly to the breadth of information already available in PennData. Indexing of reviews--books, movies, art exhibits, CDs, concerts, hardware, software --is extensive. H. W. Wilson indexing is very timely, and the Library will update the database monthly as they do other PennData files. The merge of the humanities, social sciences, and applied science in one database results in interesting cross-discipline perspectives. The database includes brief but informative abstracts from publications like Time, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, Fortune, Byte, Science, New Republic, and New Yorker. Take a moment to try it out. Log in to library, type WILS at the database selection menu, sign on with your social security number, and you're in. Sidebar 1: WILS Indexes ART INDEX, 9/84- 240 English and foreign language journals, yearbooks, and museum bulletins covering archeology, architecture, art and art history, city planning, design, crafts, photography, and video. HUMANITIES INDEX, 2/84- 350 English language journals in classical studies, folklore, history, language, literature, music, religion, philosophy, theology, and the performing arts. SOCIAL SCIENCES INDEX, 2/83- 350 core English language journals including anthropology, area studies, geography, economics, political science, psychology, social work, sociology, and urban studies. READERS' GUIDE ABSTRACTS, 1/90- indexes and abstracts 200 popular magazines covering news, culture, and the arts. APPLIED SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY INDEX, 10/83- 390 English language periodicals including trade & industrial publications, journals of professional societies, and specialized subject journals in all areas of science and engineering. Sidebar 2: How we found the answers and citations: k=election and results and britain k=madonna and shoe k=buckyballs and discovery k=habermas and intrv k=rich.au. and poems k=baker houston and brv a=rabate k=deconstruction and symposium k=laptop computer? k=contemporary and pennsylvania PATRICIA RENFRO is Director, Public Services, for the University Libraries.