This CD‐ROM provides a 40‐year index to articles in eight of the world’s premier ornithological journals. Six are American and published by the Ornithological Societies of North America. These are The Auk and Ornithological Monographs (American Ornithologists’ Union), The Condor and Studies in Avian Biology (Cooper Ornithological Society), Journal of Field Ornithology (Association of Field Ornithologists) and The Wilson Bulletin (Wilson Ornithological Society). Two are British ‐ Wildfowl (Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust) and The Ibis (British Ornithologists’ Union). Sadly, this last journal lacks a name in the Introduction. All eight journals publish papers on birds from all parts of the world though there is a high proportion of material concerning birds of North America and the British Isles.
Full citations, as well as abstracts, are given for all articles published from 1955 to mid‐1996. The abstracts vary considerably in length and detail and have been provided by the compilers in cases where they were not included in the original. Subjects, authors, and dates can be used for searching; all in a simple, easy to understand way with plenty of on‐screen information. Once a few letters of the search term have been typed in, an “AUTODEX” index appears giving a list of closely matching words and the number of records available for each. This is particularly useful for scientific and ornithological terminology where there are variations of the word‐endings, often depending on the nationality of the author. The index is also invaluable where there may be different spellings of the scientific names of birds, such as cinerea or cinereus.
Some of the eight journals indexed contain a good number of book reviews and the database gains an extra dimension here with the book authors, titles and keywords added. Even though there may not be a journal article on your subject, it is often useful to know what books have been published covering that topic. A few cases were noted where an anonymous review has been wrongly attributed to another review author.
The serious scientific nature of the journals covered means that the contents would not be of much use to the beginner birdwatcher. The ease of use, though, means that even without a knowledge of birds, some valuable references can be found. In these days of financial constraints the cost of the disk must compare favourably with the cost of subscribing to the journals. One needs to bear in mind, however, that the contents of only eight journals are included and one may then have to turn to the Zoological Record or other means of searching.
