Book Review Digest (1983- )

Database Description
Fields in This Database:
· Authors
· Titles and Publishing Information
· Subjects
· Other Text
· Issue Numbering
· Codes

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Database Description: The Book Review Digest cites and provides excerpts of reviews of current English-language fiction and nonfiction books. A summary of the book is also provided. This database indexes reviews from more than 100 leading periodicals published in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. Journal list.

Current fiction and nonfiction, both adult and juvenile, in the humanities, social sciences, and general sciences are included.

PRODUCED BY: The H.W. Wilson Company.
DATES COVERED: From January 1983.
UPDATES: Monthly.

Fields in This Database.

AUTHORS

AUTHORS (.AU.) encompasses all kinds of author names:

• Primary and joint authors of the book.
• Reviewer of the book.
• Organization name given as author.

Names are standardized in this database, so that the same form of name is always used for a particular person or organization. Examples:

Russell, Mary Doria
Mitakidou, Christodoula
Kleiman, J.
Tseng, Mou-sien
Lomas Garza, Carmen
Lees-Milne, James
Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Sharon, Lois & Bram (Musical Group)

All words are indexed. If you are unsure how the name is given, begin searching by surname only. For hyphenated surnames, use either surname or both.

For more precise results, you may search by one of the specialized author types listed below. However, to search these specialized fields effectively, you need to understand how records are constructed by the indexers.

MAIN AUTHOR (.AUTH.): Primary author of the book.

ALTERNATE AUTHOR (.ALAU.): Book reviewer. For books with multiple authors, ALAU also includes secondary or joint authors.

CORPORATE AUTHOR (.CO.): Name of organization (association, institution, conference, corporation, or government agency) given as the author of the book.

TITLES AND PUBLISHING INFORMATION

BOOK TITLE (.TI.): Title of the book; reviews are also listed by the book title.

JOURNAL TITLE (.JN.): Title of the journal in which the review was published.

ALTERNATE TITLE (.ALTI.): The distinctive title for a work that has appeared under varying titles or in various versions.

The following searches retrieve only citations for books (not reviews):
BOOK PUBLISHER (.BKPB.)
BOOK PUBLICATION YEAR (.PUBY.)
EDITION (.ED.)
SERIES (.SE.)

SUBJECTS

SUBJECTS (.SU.) encompasses all kinds of subjects:

• Topical description of the content of the book, from the thesaurus used by the professional indexers of this database.
• Names of people as subjects of the book.
• Names of places as subjects of the book.
• Names of organizations as subjects of the book.

For more precise results, you may search by one of the specialized subject types listed below. However, to search these specialized fields effectively, you need to understand how records are constructed by the indexers.

PERSONAL NAME AS SUBJECT (.PS.): The name of a person who is the subject of the book being reviewed.

CORPORATE NAME AS SUBJECT (.SUBC.): The name of an association, institution, conference, or corporation that is the subject of the book being reviewed.

GEOGRAPHIC NAME AS SUBJECT (.SUBG.): The name of a place that is the subject of the book being reviewed.

TOPICAL SUBJECT (.SUBJ.): Topical description of the content of the book, from the thesaurus used by the professional indexers of this database.

OTHER TEXT

These fields include notes supplied by the indexers who create this database. You will find words from these fields when you search KEYWORD OR PHRASE without qualification. It is unusual to search these fields directly, because you cannot generally predict their content. However, if you are searching one of these fields, omit stopwords.

ABSTRACT (.AB.): In citations for books, AB contains an abstract or summary of the book. In citations for some reviews, AB contains an abstract or excerpt from the review.

NOTE (.NT.): General indexers' notes.

ISSUE NUMBERING

YEAR (.YR.): The year of publication of the review or book. If an issue spans two years ('97-'98), the earlier year (1997) is indexed here.

MONTH (.MO.): The month of the issue in which the review appeared. Months are given as 3- or 4-letter abbreviations; seasons are spelled out.

VOLUME (.VO.): The volume of the journal in which the review appeared.

NUMBER (.NO.): The number of the issue in which the review appeared.

PAGINATION (.PG.): The page number of the review. Searching with PG can be useful if you have only a partial citation. Enter the starting page and the truncation symbol $.

CODES

ACCESSION NUMBER (.AN.): Record control number assigned by database producer; unique to each record in the database. Searching by AN is a method for returning directly to a record that you have retrieved previously.

BIOGRAPHY CODE (.BIO.): A code representing the biographical content of the book.

b -- Individual biography
c -- Collective biography
d -- Non-biographical book with biographical material

COUNTRY OF PUBLICATION (.CP.): A 2- or 3-character code representing the place of publication of the journal or book. Given the scope of this database, only relatively few countries are represented. For a complete list of codes, see the Library of Congress MARC Code List for Countries.

at -- Australia
xxc -- Canada
xxk -- Great Britain
xxu -- United States

FICTION CODE (.FIC.): A code indicating whether the book is fiction or nonfiction.

0 -- Nonfiction
1 -- Fiction

CONTAINS (.IL.): Abbreviations for illustrations or other special content within the book.

col -- Colored
il -- Illustrations
maps -- Maps
pl -- Plates

ISSN (.IS.): The International Standard Serial Number of the journal.

ISBN (.ISBN.): The International Standard Book Number of the book.

JUVENILE CODE (.JUV.): The code "j" indicates that the book is a work of children's literature.

j -- Juvenile literature

May 2003

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