Online Periodical Indexes Flashcards
RILM
RILM is the superior periodical index for music researchers. It has the most international coverage and its years of coverage extend from 1967 to the present day. It currently advertizes 12,297 indexed journals and about 730,000 citations. About 20,000 of those are retrospective. Occasionally there is full online access to full texts. They cover 214 languages and 151 different countries. They also have coverage of non-periodical publications with a focus on scholarly information. The online search interface is good and run through EBSCOhost. They include some coverage of reviews. Its unique contributions are its non-periodical coverage, the excellent quality of abstracts, and its broad international sources.
Music Index
The Music Index Online has years of coverage from 1970 to the present day. They advertise over 480 indexed journals with selective coverage for over 200. The disadvantage to this is that they may begin indexing a journal a few years after its establishment, or before its cancellation. The number of citations is not advertized currently but formerly they boasted 1.2 million. They do not do retrospective indexing, but if EBSCO owns the rights to a particular journal, there will be online access to the full text. Usually there will not be abstracts available. Their coverage of foreign language sources is unknown, but certainly limited. They do not include coverage of non-periodical publication types. An “exception” can be made however, in the case of the periodical, “Dissertation Abstracts.” They include coverage of scholarly and non-scholarly publications and their coverage of reviews is extensive, covering about half of the content. This is one of the Music Index Online’s strengths.
IIMP (International Index to Music Periodicals)
IIMP’s year of coverage extend from 1995 to the present day. They advertise 140 indexed journals and 770,000 citations, many of those being reviews. About 200,000 of those citations are retrospective. Their retrospective indexing goes back as far as 1874, including 40 complete retrospective journals. They offer direct online access for many of their indexed journals, but online access doesn’t always match up with the years of coverage for each journal. The index includes coverage of non-periodical types, but it is not really advanced coverage. There are some articles included from sites such as Naxos. Their coverage of scholarly vs. non-scholarly journals is mixed, with a great deal of citations being reviews. Their online interface is Proquest, and it includes advanced search options. Once again, IIMP’s coverage of reviews is extensive. It’s unique contributions include retrospective indexing through the first half of the 20th century.
BMS Online
Coverage from BMS Online begins in 1950. They advertise about 600 indexed journals and 330,000 citations. They offer retrospective indexing currently as far back as 1936. If an article is born digital, exists in e-journals, or has been made available online for free, BMS does offer the complete texts online. They also include many detailed abstracts of good quality. Because they share abstractors with RILM, many current abstracts are duplicates of information provided on RILM. Their foreign language coverage is limited—it is a German company, so most of their citations are German. There are more foreign languages in retrospective indexing, mostly European countries and Scandinavia. The focus is on scholarly research and their interface is standard, simple, and functional with German and English language options. BMS’s coverage of reviews is limited and their unique contribution is that prior to 1967, the content is much like RILM.
RIPM
RIPM’s years of coverage are 1759-1962. They offer 208 journals indexed to date. These are entire journals. They also offer 714,000 annotated records. Their indexing is completely retrospective and they offer access to full texts online. A few of these are withing the index, but a great deal more are available through the RIPM e-library. There are no abstracts and they offer coverage of about 14 foreign languages. They do not offer coverage of non-periodical sources and the publications are all scholarly journals. The online search interface is EBSCOhost. They do cover reviews. RIPM’s strengths are that it is all retrospective coverage in historical context and that they index EVERYTHING in complete journals, including advertisements.
