Bibliographie Internationale de l'Humanisme et de le Renaissance (BIHR)

The interface is available in English or in French.

Reviewers at CRL libraries observed several shortcomings in the interface during a trial access period:

• The search functions are limited, comparing unfavorably with other databases such as Iter.
• No apparent term truncation option. This is a serious burden when searching names with variable forms such as Petrarca/petrarch/petrarque or Christine de Pisan/Pizan.
• No apparent option for Boolean operators.

• Indexed “subjects” are actually broad, hierarchical classification headings. They are browsed  through a complicated “branching logic” display (although known headings can also be accessed directly). Articles on the restoration of two different medieval churches from the same volume of conference proceedings are classified under two different headings: Culture /Arts /Art religieux / Architecture religieuse, and Croyances et Savoirs / Religion / Institutions et mouvements religieux.

• Full-text searching of bibliographic titles and annotations yields inconsistent results because of the many languages represented among the sources.

• No linking possible from results display (cannot redirect a search on a subject, author, journal, etc.).

• While help guidelines are in both English and French, many of the interface prompts (and most of the help guidelines) link back to French first, regardless of the language chosen for the interface.

Reviewers also noted that configuring the database sources with link resolvers would be a great improvement.

The publisher reports several improvements under consideration, including de-duping some entries, and supporting export of citations to standard bibliographic utilities including EndNote and Zotero.