Information Today
Volume 18, Issue 9 — October 2001
Table of Contents Previous Issues Subscribe Now! ITI Home
H.W. Wilson Announces Distribution Partnerships

H.W. Wilson has announced that its Essay and General Literature Index, a database of information on thousands of essays compiled in anthologies and collections, is now available to users of OCLC's FirstSearch service. The company has also announced that it has entered into a distribution agreement with the Art Museum Image Consortium (AMICO) to make the latter's AMICO Library available via WilsonWeb.
 

OCLC Partnership
The Essay and General Literature Index cites essays and articles from collections and anthologies published in the U.S. and Canada. More than 300 volumes are indexed annually, and retrospective coverage reaches as far back as 1985. Additionally, more than 20 annuals and serial publications, such as Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, The Supreme Court Review, Dickens Studies Annual, and Anglo-Saxon England, are indexed. Besides citing the individual essays, Essay and General Literature Index provides full bibliographic information on the collections indexed.

At present, Essay and General Literature Index delivers information on 59,370 essays from some 4,855 collections. The database is updated annually. According to the announcement, fast searching by subject, title, author, source, and more provides easy access for researchers.

The OCLC FirstSearch service offers library users online access to more than 70 databases in a wide range of subject areas, including Wilson databases in business, the humanities, science, and the social sciences. FirstSearch also includes more than 3,300 electronic journals available through OCLC FirstSearch Electronic Collections Online, links to the OCLC interlibrary loan service, and libraries' holdings information for the millions of items cataloged in the WorldCat database.
 

The AMICO Library
The AMICO Library, an online resource of art images and multimedia gathered from AMICO member museums, provides educational institutions with images and other related information to support learning in art history, the humanities, studio art and design, and other subjects.

"The AMICO Library fits naturally into Wilson's existing assortment of art and biography reference materials, and its visual quality, impressive array of content, and member sources provide a resource that should appeal to a great deal of our existing users," said Deborah Loeding, H.W. Wilson's vice president of sales and marketing.

Documentation and images of a range of art, such as paintings, sculpture, prints, photographs, illustrations, arms and armor, costumes and jewelry, decorative arts, textiles, and other works, comprise the contents of this online resource. Works in The AMICO Library span the length of artistic creation, from 3000 B.C. to the late 20th century, and represent a broad cross-section of cultures from Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Africa.

Each work in The AMICO Library features at least one high-resolution digital image and a full description. More than an image database, The AMICO Library may also include curatorial text, provenance information, details or multiple views of the work, and other related multimedia, like sound and video.

"Our goal is to integrate art and cultural resources into as many online environments as possible. The relationship between AMICO and H.W. Wilson enables us to connect to an entirely new user community. Broadening our reach and scope drives AMICO members' enthusiasm and participation," said Jennifer Trant, AMICO's executive director. "Wilson's plans to integrate The AMICO Library with other Wilson resources will help us meet our mission of enabling educational use of museum multimedia across the curriculum."

The initial delivery of The AMICO Library will be as an additional database in Wilson's WilsonWeb offerings. Greater integration of The AMICO Library with other Wilson research databases through hyperlinks to related content or appropriate bibliographic citations is currently in development and Wilson anticipates an enhanced release next year.

Source: H.W. Wilson, New York, 800/367-6770, 718/588-8400; http://www.hwwilson.com.

Table of Contents Previous Issues Subscribe Now! ITI Home
© 2001 Information Today, Inc. Home