 |
 |
|
|
|
|
History of ABI Inform
ABI stands for Abstracted Business Information. The
Inform refers to the Inform software purchased by the University of Wisconsin,
and it was also the name of a project at the University of Wisconsin that was
an information service for engineers. Three graduate students at Portland State
University in 1971 worked on a way to keep the management team at a local bank
up to speed on their professional reading. Since these were business students
and not library students they started with natural language searching and not
a controlled vocabulary. At first, there were not too many people interested
in ABI Inform. Then in Sept 1973 it went live on the SDC ORBIT system, and then it went live on Dialog as file 15. In the 1980's ABI Inform was sold to UMI, which is now known as Proquest Information and Learning. A more detailed history can be found at: http://www.onlinemag.net/jan02/ojala.htm
ABI Inform Today:
Today ABI Inform has close to two million records almost half of which are in
full text form. There are 3,937 titles included in the three ABI Inform databases
listed below. They contain articles from international professional publications,
academic Journals, and trade magazines and newspapers. Many are available full
text. In March 2005 10,000 dissertations and theses were added to this growing
database.
Structure of ABI Inform Database
The primary unit in the ABI Inform database is the record.
 |
Each record contains different fields. These usually fields describe a journal or magazine article. For example, in every record there is a title field, and author field, and a source field. These fields can be searched.
Different Databases Within ABI-Inform
Accessing ABI Inform
To access ABI Inform, you need to:
1. go to the Library Electronic Resources page at:
http://www.se.edu/lib/electres.htm
2. go to Periodical Databases
3. Select the second link under Periodical Databases, which is ABI-Inform on Proquest.
4. If you are off campus click on the Proxy Server link over in the blue column on the left of the page, then type in the username and ID on the Remote Access to Library
databases sheet that is available at the Reference Desk.
Searching in ABI Inform
There are two levels of searching in ABI Inform:
 |
| Basic Search:Can search by keyword, phrase, date, full-text documents, scholarly journals, publication title, author, citation and abstract, citation and document text, document type, and publication type. |
 |
| Advanced Search: Can search by citation and abstract, citation and document text, abstract, document text, document title, document type, author, classification code, company/org, image caption, location, NAICS code, person, product name, publication title, subject, keyword, phrase, date, full-text documents, and scholarly journals. |
Boolean searching
Boolean searching is a way to search for more than one term at a time. Many databases allow boolean searching. Use boolean searching when you are searching for more than one term. There are three main boolean terms:
| Term | Explanation |
| AND | AND is used to refine or shrink a search. When you use AND, you are telling the search tool to find both search terms in every record. Example: If you searching for business and behavior, you would type in business AND behavior. |
| OR | OR is used to expand a search. When you use OR, you want all the results to contain either the first term or the second. Example: business OR behavior |
| AND NOT | AND NOT is used to omit a closely related term. For example if you wanted to search for management skills but not by the author Von Bergen, you would put in: management and skills not von bergen |
See page 1 of the Proquest Quick Reference Guide to see other ways to combine search terms. Also see that page for how to search by phrase.
Truncation and Wildcard Characters| About | after | also | An | and | any |
| are | as | at | be | because | because |
| been | between | both | for | like | like |
| index | meaning |
| Citation and Abstract | When you select the Citation and abstracts from the drop-down menu, Proquest searches the following fields: Author, Personal Name, Abstract, Product name, Article Title, Subject Terms, Company Name, Source ( publication title) and geographical name. | Citation and Document Text | When you select Citation and Document text, Proquest searches within the complete text of the article, the citation fields, and the abstract. |
| Abstract | The abstract field or index contains words from the abstract of each article. |
| Author | The author index or field includes writers of books and articles, or reviewer |
| Classification code | Use Classification Codes when searching business topics. Classification Codes are a fast way to precisely target a search by topic, industry or market, geographical area, or article type. You can browse a list of classification codes uses in this database. |
| Company Name/Org | Search for a company or other organization featured prominently in an article, including the following: Associations, Companies, Cooperatives, Divisions of Companies, Governmental Organizations, Political Parties other organizations, such as professional sports teams, churches, native american tribes, and music groups. You can browse a list of company names and organizations used in this database. |
| Document feature | Searches only the different features of a document, such as: charts, diagrams, engravings, equations, graphs, illustrations, maps, photographs, plates, references and tables. You can also browse the Document features |
| Document ID | Searches only the unique database ID for an article. Every article or document has a unique document id Example: ID(356894) |
| Document language | Used to search Language index. The field contains the language in which the document was published originally. You can select languages from the language field specific index. |
| Document Text | Searches only the full text of articles for your search terms. Article abstracts are not included in this search. AND , OR and other search operators are treated as such unless enclosed in quotes. |
| Document Title | The title of an article, such as "Peering into the Future of Careers." This search field locates the occurrence of search words in the title of the article. |
| Document Type | Use this search field to look for search words or phrases in articles of a certain type, such as commentary, corrections, cover story,editorial, editorial cartoon, feature, fiction, general information, instructional, interview, letter, news, obituary, poetry, recipe, book review, movie review, product review, television review, speech or statistics. |
| Image Caption | This Search field looks for occurrences of search words in the caption text accompanying article illustrations, graphs, and photographs |
| Geographical name / Location | Use this search field to look for articles in which a geographical area or location figures prominently in the text. |
| NAICS Codes (Industry Code) | The NAICS code defines the economic activity of a business as defined by the US Census Bureau. You can also browse NAICS codes if unsure of the code number of an industry |
| Person | Use to find articles about a person. When the Personal name field is displayed in an article citation, the life spans of historical figures follow their names. You can enter the name in any format. Searching for NA(John A Smith) will return the same results as NA(Smith, John A). You can also browse a list of people in the database. |
| Product Name | Use to find articles about a specific product |
| Publication Title | Used to search by a specific publication or publications. You can also browse a list of publications in the database. |
| Section | Use this field to search for articles that appear in a specific section of a publication. Use the SOURCE search to specify a publication. You must use the section name exactly how it appears in the publication. |
| Subject Terms | Use the Subject search field to look for articles about a specific subject. When you search using subject, Proquest finds articles containing your search terms in the index field. You can Browse a list of subject terms used in this database. |
| Term | Abbreviation | Example |
| Abstract A brief summary of the contents of the document |
Ab or abs | ABS(Customer delight) |
| Appendix Used to search the appendix of a document |
APX | APX(Michigan) |
| Author Person responsible for doing research and writing the document |
AUTHOR or AU | AU(Von Bergen) |
| Author Affiliation Contains the institutional affiliation and address of the first author |
AUA | AUA(Southeastern Oklahoma State University) |
| Classification Code | CC | CC(1120) for Economic Policy & Planning |
| Classification Description/ Expansion Used to find keywords within the classification labels or descriptions in articles. This lets you find articles across multiple classification codes (for example, all those dealing with "education" |
CD | CD(education*) |
| Coden Used to search the coden index. A coden is an alphanumeric code used for shelving/ordering books and journals in libraries. |
COD | CODEN(EDUSBI) |
| Company name / organization | CO or ORG | CO(Sears) |
| Date | DA | DA(September 5 2005) |
| Date (Numeric) | PDN | PDN(1/1/2000) or PDN(>5/3/2001) or PDN(<5/4/2004) |
| Dateline Lets you search article Datelines. The dateline occurs frequently in newspapers, just after the article title, giving the date and place of the articles origin. | DLN | DLN(Chicago) or DLN(lebanon pre/1 ohio |
| Document Column head The title of a column in a periodical or newspaper, such as "The Week in Review". This search field finds all articles where the search words are in the column head. |
COL | COL(futures) |
| Document ID | ID | ID(54533) |
| Document Text | TX | TX("North Sea Oil") |
| Document Title | TI | TI(career AND Accounting) |
| Document Type | AT or DT | DT(commentary) |
| DUNS The Dunn and Bradstreet trading partner identification number. These numbers provide a universal system for computer identification of companies | DUNS | DUNS(00 695 7856) |
| Footnote Search article footnotes for your terms. | FOOT | FOOT(456 U.S. 888) |
| Geographical Name / Location Use this search field to look for articles in which a geographical area or location figures prominently in the text. |
GEO, GN, LO, LOC | GEO(Texas) or GN(Black Sea) |
| Headnote This search field looks for search words that occur in the headnotes of an article. Headnotes are short introductions, explanations, or comments at the beginning of an article. They are different from abstracts in that they do not attempt to summarize the content of the article. | HEAD | HEAD(global economy) |
| Image Caption | CAP | CAP(chart) |
| ISSN This Search field looks for the eight-digit International Standard Serials Number | ISSN | ISSN(3485-3847) |
| Product name | PROD | PROD(wisk) or PROD(Ford) |
| Publication Title / Journal Name | SOURCE or SO | SO:Business Week |
| Section Use to include or exclude section of a publication | SE, SEC, SECTION | SOURCE(New York Times) AND SECTION(editorial) |
| Source Type Use to include or exclude the following source types from your search: dissertations, newspapers, periodicals, and wire feeds | STYPE | NA(Winston Churchill and STYPE(newspapers) |
| Subject terms | SUB | SUB(Music) |
| Ticker symbol Use to find articles with indexed ticker symbols. The ticker symbol is used by major U.S. stock market exchanges to identify companies. | TICKER or TK | TK(INTC) Intel Corp |
| Volume Used to search Volume of a journal. | VO | VO(25) |
| Year Used to search Publication Year | YR | YR(1977) YR(1986-1990) YR(<1988) |
.
The list of journals included in ABI-Inform appears. It will show what years are covered and the city that the journal is published. It will also give the date range of coverage of the journal, and if it is available in full text, the years of full text coverage. When you click on title, you will be taken to a page where you can search for just this publication, and browse each individual issue.