The Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical Index
Here’s a web-based scholarly resource that had somehow evaded my notice until now: the Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical Index, neatly abbreviated (with obligatory capital letter in the middle) as the SciPer index. Here’s what it is and what it does, in its own words:
The Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical (SciPer) Index provides a scholarly synopsis of the material relating to science, technology, and medicine appearing in sixteen general periodicals published in Britain between 1800 and 1900. With entries describing over 14,000 articles and references to more than 6000 individuals and 2500 publications, it provides an invaluable research tool for those interested in the representation of science and in the interpenetration of science and literature in nineteenth-century Britain, as well as for students of the period more generally. […]
Constructed by systematically reading runs of sixteen non-scientific titles, [the index] provides details of the scientific references occurring throughout the periodicals, whether in fiction, poetry, illustrations, or dedicated scientific articles. The index has been compiled by experienced nineteenth-century researchers, whose judgement in identifying non-trivial references, and in identifying the people, publications, and institutions to whom reference is made, makes the finished product both more inclusive than conventional indexes, and more incisive than full-text searching. Although the index inevitably represents only a small proportion of the material available, a wide range of periodical formats and genres is represented. The indexing is very detailed, including not only the authors, titles, and bibliographical details of articles with relevant references, but also references to people, institutions, and publications mentioned, and in many cases a more extended description.
The SciPer index is very easy to use, with a sound basic search facility and an advanced search feature that provides almost every option you could wish for (although it would be nice to be able to exclude specific periodicals from the results; one can have too much of Punch). The periodicals indexed are listed here and include Blackwood’s, Cornhill, Edinburgh Review and the European Harper’s.
The recent expansion in the availability of full-text electronic resources has, if anything, increased the need for this kind of detailed and focused scholarly indexing, as the creators of SciPer observe: ‘full-text searching threatens to overwhelm the student with unwanted hits. Furthermore, both conventional indexing and digital full-texts have tended to leave illustrative material difficult to locate’. SciPer fills that gap and for anyone working on Victorian STM constitutes an invaluable resource.
