Inter‐Play is an Internet play index, just as its title states. It loads quickly and has simple black‐and‐white lined graphics depicting theatrical themes which add a nice flair to the resource material. The site is hosted by PORTALS (Portland Area Library System) whose purpose is “[w]orking co‐operatively to expand and enrich scholarly information resources”. In true library fashion, Inter‐Play does what it intends. The purpose of the site is to provide an online index to plays that have been published in forms other than monographs. The name is copyrighted,showing users that it is a reputable source and the authors are concerned with accurate information.
Inter‐Play supplements the traditional sources, Ottemiller’s Index to Plays in Collections and Wilson’s Play Index, by not including material indexed in these works. Hence, its existence is predicated on the important issue that no single source can ever index everything; so additional sources are often required. Westover and Wright have filled a needed gap in these publications which historically have only appeared in print every few years. Therefore Inter‐Play solves two problems: currency and content. Inter‐Play does not provide indexing for individual monographs. The editors recommend you search local library catalogs for individual published works. The database provides as close to a full citation as possible; and the authors have included call numbers for books located in the Portland State University Library. Even for students who use this resource, aside from those at PSU, this is useful as they can search the general call number range for similar anthologies or sources, assuming their library uses the Library of Congress classification. The editors also cross‐reference related entries, such as pseudonyms or alternate spellings. It is obvious that these librarians have considered many things when they designed the database.
The database indexes almost 17,000 citations to plays in a variety of published areas. The sources date from the late nineteenth century through recent publications, although there is no explanation for the choice of individual sources, except that they have not been indexed in Ottemiller’s or the Play Index. According to correspondence with the authors, the database is updated quarterly, with a scheduled large update during the summer of 1999.
The search engine is simple, quick, and easy to use. However, it is missing things most would consider logical. There is no user documentation; so one may have to make a few attempts to get the right hits. Even a simple search engine such as this may become difficult for some people. One can only search the site by author or title of the play. Precision is important. When searching by author, one must type last name first, although capitalization and punctuation are irrelevant.
As in title searching, drop introductory articles. If there is punctuation for another form of the word, use it (e.g. “doll’s” = A Doll’s House), or the search engine reverts to a keyword title search and you will get other results (e.g. “dolls” = Guys and Dolls). To truncate, leave off the ending. Interestingly, this will allow the search engine to identify hits that start with the letters but also include the letters in others words (e.g. “ibs” produces authors such as “Ibsen” and “Gibson”; “bartlett” produces both Neil Bartlett and Bartlett Cormack). There is also a simple Boolean operator that allows you to choose AND or OR between author and title, which can be useful if you want to narrow down copies of Shakespeare’s Hamlet or you aren’t sure of either the author or the title. The search engine only searches these two fields, however. A more advanced search engine would allow you to search source material or general keyword, which for some users would be more useful. The authors are currently working on an updated and more advanced search engine which is supposed to première this summer.
In keeping with proper form, all entries follow the same template. Each record lists the author and title of the play, editor/translator, notes (such as if the citation only includes excerpts), source author, source title, edition, imprint, page numbers, and LC call number. Records are arranged alphabetically by author then title. You can print out the results or save them in basic text format.
As mentioned, while there are no useful guides to assist in the searching of the site, it is planned for ease of use by patrons of almost every age. All library patrons would benefit from using it, particularly because it is free. As a Web site, it would perhaps be more useful if it were designed with frames. One could search on a left frame and have results appear in the right frame, as many databases, such as ProQuest Direct, currently do. More color graphics or a background would make the site more “alive” which would help with the site’s aesthetic value. Yet, these issues are related to design and concept and in no way impinge on the quality of the information reproduced. The site is highly recommended for all libraries to provide a link from their own Web site. It will be used by library patrons in researching literature and the performing arts.
For more information about Inter‐Play, read a recently published article by the authors entitled “Inter‐Play: the creation of an Internet Play Index”, Internet Reference Services Quarterly, Vol. 3 No. 3, 1998.
