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INDEX ISLAMICUS ON CD-ROM: A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PUBLICATIONS ON ISLAM AND THE MUSLIM WORLD SINCE 1906. Edited by G. J. ROPER and C. H. BLEANEY. East Grinstead, West Sussex, Bowker-Saur, 1998. One CD-ROM. 1995 + VAT.
The hard-copy version of Index Islamicus has been, since the publication of the first cumulation in 1958, the single most important source of bibliographical information for both Islamic and Middle Eastern studies. Begun by Professor J. D. Pearson in the 1950s as an index to articles in periodicals, conference proceedings and collective works dealing with the Middle East and Islam, from 1976 onwards it widened its coverage bibliographically to include books as well as articles, and, from 1993, book reviews as well. Culturally and geographically, its coverage has now broken away from its former emphasis on the heartlands of Islam, to include material on Muslims in Africa, South, Central and South-East Asia, and on the Islamic minorities in Europe and North America as well. Another important innovation by Dr Geoffrey Roper, Jim Pearson's successor to the editorship in 1982, has been the provision of a subject index.
Although a boon of inestimable value to all scholars and students of the Middle East, Index Islamicus has, up to now, presented the user with two main difficulties: the proliferation of parts needed to survey publications between 1906 and 1996 (35 separate items by my reckoning); and the lack of refinement in the subject index-the index to the 1996 volume has well over 150 undifferentiated references to items dealing with the nineteenth century Ottoman Empire, for example. CD-ROM is an ideal technology to remedy both these defects. It allows the user to search the whole bibliography in a single action, and, provided there is a good thesaurus, it enables...