DataBasics 

By Kerry Smith
MSU Libraries

The MSU Libraries' FirstSearch database family is composed of 30 high-quality indexes to the contents of journals and other materials in all disciplines. This month's DataBasics column focuses on four FirstSearch arts and humanities indexes.

Art Abstracts
Containing over 400,000 records and indexing back to 1984, Art Abstracts indexes more than 300 key international English-language arts publications, including periodicals, yearbooks, museum bulletins, competition and award notices, exhibition listings, interviews, film reviews, and more. Subject coverage includes architecture and landscape architecture, art history, folk art, graphic arts, interior design, musicology, painting, photography, sculpture, and textiles.

Arts and Humanities Search
The online equivalent of the Arts and Humanities Citation Index from the Institute for Scientific Information, Arts and Humanities Search provides complete indexing for more than 1,150 of the world's leading arts and humanities journals in a broad range of disciplines. This database also includes individually selected, relevant items from more than 7,000 of the world's leading science and social sciences journals. Altogether, the database contains some 2.2 million records, with coverage extending back to 1980.

Biography Index
This index to biographical subjects from antiquity to the present in all fields and nationalities cites more than 2,700 periodicals. Approximately 250,000 records index autobiographies, bibliographies, biographies, critical studies, fiction and drama, pictorial works, poetry, juvenile literature, obituaries, journals, collections of letters, book reviews, and interviews.

Periodicals Contents Index
Periodicals Contents Index covers the contents of older issues of periodicals in the humanities and social sciences, dating back to 1961. PCI allows searching of back volumes of journals with the same ease and convenience as those published more recently. Complete tables of contents are included for each issue of a journal. PCI covers more than 2,300 journals in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and other Western languages. Records for more than two million articles are added yearly.

Individuals affiliated with Mississippi State can access CAB Abstracts from Mitchell Memorial Library's web site at nt.library.msstate.edu. Remote users will be validated online. Difficulties should be reported to the MSU Libraries Systems Department at 325-2842, or by e-mail at systems@library.msstate.edu.