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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.

Sources

Sources for this review include information publicly posted or obtained directly from the publisher, data collected by CRL staff and members, and examination of the digital collection when possible. Other sources are noted where cited.

Reviewers

Center for Research Libraries

  • Virginia Kerr - Digital Program Manager
  • Gretchen Rings - Communications Staff Writer

University of Notre Dame

  • Laura Fuderer - Subject Librarian for English and French Literatures

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

Sources for this review include information publicly posted or obtained directly from the publisher, data collected by CRL staff and members, and examination of the digital collection when possible. Other sources are noted where cited.

Collection Content

Subjects coveredThe arts, bibliography (history of the book), history, linguistics (philology), literature, religion, social sciences
Geographic coverageEurope
Chronological coverageContemporary publications concentrating on 15th and 16th centuries
Content types An index of bibliographic records
Source formats NA
Total titlesc. 500 journal titles inexed in 2007
Total pagesAbout 500 pages/5,000 bibliographic records per issue; more than 280,000 bibliographic records published 1965-2012
Digital collection launch date2002
Update frequency Annually
Collection ongoingY
Completion dateNA
Available supplements NA
Major languagesFrench (also includes articles in English, German, Polish, and Greek)
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Technical Platform

PBrowser compatibilityAll
PAuthentication optionsPer email/pass or IP
Archiving solution – master filesNA
Archiving solution – derivative filesNA
PAvailability in web discovery toolsN
POpen URL targetN
PFederated searching, z39.50N
PLocal host optionN
PUsage statisticsY
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Interface Tools

Full text displayedN
Page imagesN
Color imagesNA
Search full textN
Advanced searchN
Search within resultsN
Limit results by dates and/or document typesY
Display highlighted search termsN
Display snippet -- search term in contextNA
Relevance sortingN
Save searchesY
Download PDFN
Download HTMLN
Print pageY
Print full documentN
Export citationsN
Annotation toolsN
Cross-product searchingN
ILLN
Restrictions on useSee: http://bihr.droz.org/index.php?c=home
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Provider

Publisher / DistributorLibrairie Droz
Address11, rue 11, rue FirminMassot, 1211 Genève-12 / Switzerland
Contacthttp://bihr.droz.org ; ivan.jaffrin@droz.org
Related product(s) NA
CRL Profile of Publisherurl
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Terms

Options
Subscription optionY
Purchase optionN
Multiple year payments optionNA
Hosting chargesN
List of purchasers availableNA
Sample license availableY
MARC records purchase feeNA
Price tier basisNA
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