Using ABI/Inform


Description | Basic or Advanced Searching
More searching options | Publication Search
Marking records, My Research, and Creating a Bibliography
Printing & downloading | Topic Guide | Emailing
Related Databases | Search this database

Description

ABI/Inform abstracts and indexes over 1,000 management, marketing and business journals from 1971 to the present. It also includes Full Text coverage of more than 500 major publications from 1991 onward. The database is updated on a weekly basis and includes additional holdings from the ABI/Inform Archive.
**NOTE: ABI/Inform now includes ABI/Inform Archive Complete - the full-text of many respected business periodicals from Volume 1 - 1986.

Key features:

Basic or Advanced Searching
There are two main search screens in the ABI Inform database - the basic search or the advanced search. The advanced search provides you with more search boxes and allows you to limit your search terms to specific fields by clicking in the drop-down menu beside the search box. Some of the fields you may want to search are: Author (if you only want articles written by as specific person) or Company (if you only want things about a specific company). There are more limits, but these are two of the most helpful examples. In both the basic and advanced search screens you have the option of limiting your search to only full text articles or articles from scholarly journals by clicking in the box beside these selections underneath the search box. You may also limit your results to article published in a specific date range by clicking in the drop-down menu underneath the search box.

More Search Options
These options are available in both the basic and advanced search screens by clicking on More search options in the bottom left corner of the screen. There are six options available: Publication title, Author, Look for terms in, Article type, Publication type, and Sort results by.



- Publication title: this option allows you to limit your results to include only articles that appeared in a specific publication. Enter the name of the title in the text box or click on browse publications to see a list of publications available in this database. Once you find a publication in the browse view, click on Add to Search next to the publication and it will add it to your search.
- Author: this option allows you to limit your search to articles written by a specific author. Type the author's name in the text box.
- Look for terms in: Using the drop-down menu you may select either citation and abstract or citation and article text. The database will automatically search citation and abstract, unless you change it. Citation and abstract will search for your keywords in the records for articles while citation and article text will also search for your keywords in the entire text of articles, if available.
- Article type: Select from a drop-down menu to limit your search to only specific types of articles, including Commentary; Corrections; Cover story; Editorial; Editorial cartoon; Feature; Fiction; General information; Instructional; Interview; Letter; News; Obituary; Poetry; Recipe; Review - Arts/exhibit review, Audio review, Book review, Movie review, Performance review, Product review, Restaurant review, Television review, Video review, or More review options; Speech; or Statistics.
- Publication type: Select from a drop-down menu to limit your results to articles which appeared in one of the following types of publications: Scholarly journals, Magazines, Trade publications, News/Newspapers, Reference/Reports.
- Sort results by: Select either Most recent articles first or Most relevant articles first. The database will automatically show your results with the most recent articles first, if you change it to most relevant then it will place those articles with the most frequent occurrences of your keyword(s) first.

 

Publication searching allows you to search for and then browse through issues of a particular publication.
Click on the Publications tab at the top of the screen. Enter the title of the publication you would like to browse in the text box and click the gold Search button, then click on a date to see all articles from a specific issue. Click on Search within publication to search for all articles that appeared in the publication and are indexed in this database. Click on Publication information to find dates of coverage.


Marked Items, My Research, and Creating a Bibliography

  1. Mark a record by clicking in the box to the left of the Record Number.
  2. To see just your marked records, click on the link under the My Research tab at the top of the screen or the __ marked items link at the top of your results list. (It will display how many articles are in your marked list next to the words marked items)


  • My Research can be used to:
    • Create a bibliography of your marked articles in a citation style of your choosing
    • Email marked documents
    • Export Citations
    • Create a web page
Topics
This feature is best for users who need articles, but are not certain what subject they want to search. It may also be helpful to those users who are searching for articles, but find they are not about what they wanted. The topics tab at the top of the screen will take you to a searchable list of topics used to describe articles in the database.
Emailing Articles
Emailing articles in ABI-Inform is easy. Once you are in an article, just click on the gold email button at the top of the screen and enter your email address in the box provided and click on Send Email.
(Be sure to check the button next to Page/Article image - PDF, if you would like the article to be sent to you in PDF format.)
NOTE: If the full-text of the item you want is NOT available for viewing, it is also NOT available for emailing. You will only receive what is available when viewing the item online from the database. 

Printing and Downloading Articles
Printing and downloading articles will be different depending on the format of the article.
- If the article you are viewing is a Page Image in PDF - click on the printer icon or the disk icon in the Adobe Acrobat window in which the article is displayed to print or download.
- If the article is in regular full text, click on the gold Print button in the top left corner (this will format the article for printing) and then select the regular print option from your browser window. To download and article that is HTML Text, click on Save As… from the File menu in your browser window.

Related Databases

See related Business databases. 

Search this database

Begin searching ABI/Inform.


Still Need Help?  Ask a librarian!

Birnbaum Library Reference (212) 346-1331
Mortola Library Reference (914) 773-3505
Graduate Center Library Reference (914) 422-4384


Created by Pace University Library
Revised 6/21/05
Brian Jennings
bjennings@pace.edu