Bibliographie Internationale de l'Humanisme et de le Renaissance (BIHR)
Overview
Abstract
Bibliographie Internationale de l'Humanisme et de la Renaissance (BIHR) is an annual bibliography of citations to books and articles in several areas of study of Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries: literature, philosophy, history, religion, the arts, economics, political science, law, and the sciences. It is published by Librairie Droz under the patronage of the International Federation of Societies and Institutes for the Study of the Renaissance.
This review is in progress. CRL is working to gather more information and critical assessment. We encourage our community to submit comments on their experiences with the database.
Analysis
Collection Content
Bibliographie Internationale de l'Humanisme et de la Renaissance (BIHR) is an annual bibliography of citations to books and articles in several areas of study of Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries: literature, philosophy, history, religion, the arts, economics, political science, law, and the sciences. It is published by Librairie Droz under the patronage of the International Federation of Societies and Institutes for the Study of the Renaissance.
In comparison with Iter, a database of the Middle Ages & Renaissance, reviewers found BIHR to be considerably smaller in content and behind in indexing: the latest citations found were from 2008, whereas Iter has records through 2011 and some for 2012. Also, although BIHR’s help screen indicates that there is “an index of consulted journals”, no list is apparent in the online content. Iter provides a complete list of journals covered and indicates the extent of coverage for each.
Delivery
The interface is available in English or in French.
Reviewers at CRL libraries observed several shortcomings in the interface during a trial access period:
- The search functions are limited, comparing unfavorably with other databases such as Iter.
- No apparent term truncation option. This is a serious burden when searching names with variable forms such as Petrarca/petrarch/petrarque or Christine de Pisan/Pizan.
- No apparent option for Boolean operators.
- Indexed “subjects” are actually broad, hierarchical classification headings. They are browsed through a complicated “branching logic” display (although known headings can also be accessed directly). Articles on the restoration of two different medieval churches from the same volume of conference proceedings are classified under two different headings: Culture /Arts /Art religieux / Architecture religieuse, and Croyances et Savoirs / Religion / Institutions et mouvements religieux.
- Full-text searching of bibliographic titles and annotations yields inconsistent results because of the many languages represented among the sources.
- No linking possible from results display (cannot redirect a search on a subject, author, journal, etc.).
- While help guidelines are in both English and French, many of the interface prompts (and most of the help guidelines) link back to French first, regardless of the language chosen for the interface.
Reviewers also noted that configuring the database sources with link resolvers would be a great improvement.
The publisher reports several improvements under consideration, including de-duping some entries, and supporting export of citations to standard bibliographic utilities including EndNote and Zotero.
Terms
This bibliographic index is available by subscription.
The terms for downloading seem unreasonably restrictive for scholarly use: “The Customer is hereby granted a non-exclusive licence to make one copy of any search output in electronic form i.e.: diskette, hard disk, or tape to be used for editing or temporary storage only; such search output to be less than 2% of the database.”
Details
Direct from Publisher
Sources
Collection Content
| Subjects covered | The arts, bibliography (history of the book), history, linguistics (philology), literature, religion, social sciences | |
| Geographic coverage | Europe | |
| Chronological coverage | Contemporary publications concentrating on 15th and 16th centuries | |
| Content types | An index of bibliographic records | |
| Source formats | NA | |
| Total titles | c. 500 journal titles inexed in 2007 | |
| Total pages | About 500 pages/5,000 bibliographic records per issue; more than 280,000 bibliographic records published 1965-2012 | |
| Digital collection launch date | 2002 | |
| Update frequency | Annually | |
| Collection ongoing | Y | |
| Completion date | NA | |
| Available supplements | NA | |
| Major languages | French (also includes articles in English, German, Polish, and Greek) |
Technical Platform
| P | Browser compatibility | All |
| P | Authentication options | Per email/pass or IP |
| Archiving solution – master files | NA | |
| Archiving solution – derivative files | NA | |
| P | Availability in web discovery tools | N |
| P | Open URL target | N |
| P | Federated searching, z39.50 | N |
| P | Local host option | N |
| P | Usage statistics | Y |
Interface Tools
| Full text displayed | N | |
| Page images | N | |
| Color images | NA | |
| Search full text | N | |
| Advanced search | N | |
| Search within results | N | |
| Limit results by dates and/or document types | Y | |
| Display highlighted search terms | N | |
| Display snippet -- search term in context | NA | |
| Relevance sorting | N | |
| Save searches | Y | |
| Download PDF | N | |
| Download HTML | N | |
| Print page | Y | |
| Print full document | N | |
| Export citations | N | |
| Annotation tools | N | |
| Cross-product searching | N | |
| ILL | N | |
| Restrictions on use | See: http://bihr.droz.org/index.php?c=home |
Provider
| Publisher / Distributor | Librairie Droz | |
| Address | 11, rue 11, rue FirminMassot, 1211 Genève-12 / Switzerland | |
| Contact | http://bihr.droz.org ; ivan.jaffrin@droz.org | |
| Related product(s) | NA | |
| CRL Profile of Publisher | url |
Terms
| Options | ||
|---|---|---|
| Subscription option | Y | |
| Purchase option | N | |
| Multiple year payments option | NA | |
| Hosting charges | N | |
| List of purchasers available | NA | |
| Sample license available | Y | |
| MARC records purchase fee | NA | |
| Price tier basis | NA |
