Sorry for the lack of entries of late...

Timothy Towslee
English 530
Dr. Terry Oggel
September 18, 2008

Cumulative Book Index. 60 vols. New York: H.W. Wilson, 1922-1998. Print. Ref. Z1219 .M78

Cumulative Book Index aims to be an actively compiled, comprehensive bibliography of books published in English in the year of each respective volume. Titles are collected through extensive searches of major libraries in New York and in The Library of Congress. Books may also be sent in to H.W. Wilson for inclusion in the index. CBI’s scope is very broad. It includes essentially every book published in English each year. It does not include certain works, such as: government documents, maps, sheet music, cheap and paperbound editions, pamphlets, tracts, propaganda, privately published genealogies, or editions of fewer than 500 copies. From time to time, books published prior to or soon after a volume year will be publish in the case of corrections to listings from the publisher; these listings are clearly marked. Entries are listed by author, title, and subject integrated in each volume. The author entry serves as the most complete listing, offering the authors name and dates of birth and death (if applicable), title, page count, price, year published, publisher, ISBN, and Library of Congress catalog number. Title and subject listings will provide author name, price, and publisher only. It is important to note that listing under author, title, and subject is sporadic; not all books are listed under all three search criteria.
I tested CBI by looking for books published by authors with the last name Griswold. In the 1970 volume, I found a book called Train Wreck! by Wesley S. Griswold (1909- ), 150 p., $5.95. 1969. Stephen Greene Co., SBN: 8289-0099-X, L.C. 72-88771. I found the same book, with author, price, and publisher information with a title search of Train Wreck! I did not however find the book listed under the subject of trains or train wrecks. I searched Train Wreck! on WorldCat to be certain that Griswold’s book is, in fact, about railroad accidents. It is, but it isn’t listed under train accidents or railroad accidents. I did a similar search of my favorite test book, Bernard Bergonzi’s The Early H.G. Wells. Both the 1961 British and 1962 Canadian printings are listed under Bergonzi as author and Wells as subject, but not under the title. I was a little impressed that this book only cost $3 when it came out. I paid $38 for my library discard copy.
Since the CBI’s scope is so broad, searching can be somewhat daunting. The user must search through volumes for each year to find books. Since CBI is an index itself, it would be extraneous for it to have an index for each volume, however a comprehensive subject/author index might be helpful. Although, there are other sources, such as MLAIB and ABELL that one could look to for more information. CBI serves more to fill in gaps left by incomplete bibliographic listings. For example, if you had the title of a book and the year it came out, but you needed to find its author or publisher, CBI would be helpful. Otherwise, it covers too broad of a topic to be all that effective for research.

Timothy Towslee
English 530
Dr. Terry Oggel
September 18, 2008

Dissertation Abstracts International. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International, 1938 –
1998. Print. Ref. Z5055.449 .D52 JHH465
Dissertation Abstracts International. FirstSearch. Online. 17 September 2008 < http://firstsearch.
oclc.org.proxy.library.vcu.edu/>

Dissertation Abstracts International, formerly Microfilm Abstracts, is a compendium of dissertation and thesis summaries that strives to be comprehensive, but it is passively limited to dissertations and theses abstracts submitted by authors. Authors could submit typed copies of their dissertations, and abstracts thereof, in virtually any field from dairy husbandry to German literature, to be prepared as a negative microfilm and cataloged in DAI. Authors had to pay anywhere from $15 in 1938 to $40 in the late 1970s for this service, but it was cheaper than paying to print many copies of their dissertations. DAI would list the abstracts, and anyone who wanted to access the full-text of the dissertation could order a positive copy of the microfilm or a Xeroxed paper copy. DAI came out in several issues each year and each issue included a subject index for that issue only. Each issue is organized by fields listed in the table of contents. Early issues are very light in the literature field. Abstracts are organized within each issue by author only. In 1959, the volume numbering convention changed to run with the academic year, beginning in July of 1958, running through June of 1959. These issues were indexed by author only, which made it pretty much ineffective unless the researcher knew specifically who he or she was looking for. With vol. 27 (1967), the format of DAI changed again, publishing in parts A and B covering the humanities and sciences respectively. Twelve issues came out each year. Issue no. 12 consisted of two parts; part I contained abstracts as did issues no. 1-11, part II was an index for the volume. The reference stacks at Cabell only offer issue 12, part II for vols. 31, 32, and 33. The print version of DAI is very difficult to search.
For my test of the print version of DAI, I flipped through about ten volumes, searching for dissertations written about William Morris. I found two: one from University of Wisconsin in 1958, and the second from University of Oregon in 1966. Without an index, there is much flipping of pages. It was really exciting when I did come across dissertations I was searching for, though. After about an hour of searching and only coming up with two dissertations, I jumped on my computer.
The online version of DAI is much easier to search. It includes title listings going back to 1861 and abstracts going back to 1980. Essentially, up to 1980, DAI online serves as a keyword index for the print version. Searching is done by keywords entered by the author or contained within the title. Prior to 1980, the keywords have to be in the title. My test however produced 230 results in one minute as opposed to two results in one hour flipping through the print volumes. The online search engine is especially helpful because it can be limited by year and listed subject headings.
DAI is helpful by showing what dissertations have been written, preventing scholars from conducting research that has already been done. It is essential to pair the online and print editions to get complete results. I imagine it would be helpful to compare dissertation authors with works listed in ABELL and MLAIB to find the breadth of their work beyond the dissertation as well.

Oh wait, this doesn't have anything to do with Morris. Sorry.