The Short Story Index Retrospective allows users to easily search for over 150,000 short stories written between 1830 and 1983. The print volumes of H.W. Wilson's Short Story Index from the initial volume in 1915 until 1983 may be accessed through the WilsonWeb interface. WilsonWeb's uncluttered search screen offers numerous search options including Basic and Advanced. Advanced is the default search combining up to three search terms with Boolean operators. Multiple search types provide the opportunity to create specific searches. Searches may be limited to certain years. Search results may be limited by subject, document type, publication year, or author via links in the left menu bar. In addition, a new subject search may be launched. Browse and Thesaurus are also available. Help screens and a search tutorial are available.
As this database focuses on short stories, search results include the story title, author's name, and source publication information. Hyperlinks enable users to easily locate additional stories by an author or view all stories included in a specific source. Users can create alerts or RSS feeds of searches and email results. Each search result includes WilsonLink which enables users to locate the selected story. Powered by SFX technology, WilsonLink allows users to search GoogleBooks and other web sources for additional information about a source. WilsonLink also contains an export tool for RefWorks and sometimes provides the option to search for reviews. Subscribing libraries may choose to enable searching of their open URL compliant databases as well.
WilsonLink is the added feature which makes Short Story Index Retrospective so much more than simply a computerized version of the print index. However, WilsonLink is not without weaknesses. Sample searches executed in Google Books only searched for the source title resulting in large numbers of irrelevant hits. After modifying the search to utilize phrase searching and adding the author or compiler's name, the correct item was often found. Some short stories have since been republished in other works or on the web. Therefore, searching for the specific short story title often resulted in locating the story in other sources. As some, but not all, users would take these extra steps, WilsonLink would be much more beneficial if it allowed users a choice of searching for the short story title or source title and used phrase searching.
Short Story Retrospective Index is recommended for academic libraries supporting large English or creative writing departments and any library containing a large short story collection. Libraries without a short story collection will need to be prepared to provide extensive interlibrary loan services to support users.
