Contemporary Women’s Issues (CWI) provides full text access to over 1200 English language sources including over 100 periodicals from 1992 to the present. Publications include journals, newsletters, and research reports from non‐profit groups, government, and international agencies. A wide range of women‐related topics are included in this database covering sociology, psychology, health, education, and human rights. The international scope of the product is apparent with information provided by more than 150 international organizations and over 190 countries. Journal titles include: Herizons, Iris: A Journal About Women, Journal of Gender Studies, and Off Our Backs. This is the only product of which I am aware that provides full text access to international women’s studies topics from a variety of types of resources ‐ some of which are often difficult to obtain. Other products do exist providing full text from a regional context (i.e. Women R’) or citations to articles and books (i.e. Women’s Studies Index); but none currently provide as much international research data as Contemporary Women’s Issues.
Searching CWI is a pleasant and profitable experience offering a full slate of options and capabilities. Both keyword and controlled vocabulary searching are available. Having both types of searching available is essential in a full text source and allows the user to focus on a topic. Keyword searching can be limited to title and enhanced title, full text and citation, or to the author of the article or book.
A thesaurus listing broader, narrower, and used for terms is accessible for browsing through a myriad of possible search topics. It would be convenient if a search could be started within the thesaurus but it cannot. Subject Areas, the main thesaurus terms, can be combined using AND and OR from the main search screen. Phrase searching is permissible; but no mention of truncation was found. Boolean logic using the + and ‐ characters similar to AltaVista is allowed. A Geographical Region limitation is available and, much to my surprise, includes all of the Canadian provinces as well as the American states. However, this luxury is not available for countries besides the US and Canada. Country searching can also be combined using AND and OR. There is also an option of excluding all American materials.
Limiting by date range, type of article, and type of publication is easily accomplished. Type of article has 14 options including “Exclude Book Reviews”. Type of publication has a dozen options. Another limit is “In a specific periodical source”. All of these options are easily implemented through drop down selection boxes on the main search screen.
Help screens explain functions in fairly good detail. I found the hints on the actual search screens to be sufficient to complete successful searches. I would suggest cleaning up the various spelling errors on the Help sheets as well as providing return buttons on the bottom of the individual help screens which would return the researcher either to the beginning of help or back to the main search screen.
Search results are clearly displayed in order of the closest match of terms searched. Along with rank, the date, enhanced article title, journal title, and word count are displayed ‐ all assisting with selecting the most relevant full text end product. Marking of specific records is possible from the results list. However, once one chooses to view the marked records, the program draws them up in full text and not citation. An intermediate screen allowing the user to create a short bibliography would be a useful feature. The end product is well laid out on the screen. Downloading, printing, and emailing of records or search result lists rely on the capabilities of the Internet browser. These options built into the search facilities of the database would be a welcome addition.
This product is also available on CD‐ROM with quarterly updates at a slightly lower annual subscription price. Reviews of the CD‐ROM product are available through the CWI Home Page (http://www.rdscinc.com/cwi/). A 30 day free trial of either the Web or CD‐ROM version is available for potential purchasers.
Due to the full text content, search capabilities, and relatively inexpensive subscription price, I highly recommend this web product to any academic institution with a program dealing with women’s studies.
