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CSA Worldwide Political Science Abstracts. Bethesda, Md.: Cambridge Scientific Abstracts, 2000-. www.csa.com
Pricing: The list price for WITSA is $3,450 for site-wide, unlimited access. For institutions with less than 3,500 FTE, the cost is $2,175. Group pricing is also available.
Technical Requirements: Full access to the Internet (TCPIP) and a Web browser, either Netscape (version 4.0 or higher) or Microsoft Explorer (version 4.0 or higher).
Making a relatively quiet appearance on the scene in late 2000, CSA Worldwide Political Science Abstracts (WPSA) has become a product worth talking about. Part of CSA's Internet Database Service, WPSA is the product of the combined backfiles of two other indexes-Political Science Abstracts (IFI/Plenum, 1975-2000) and ABC POL SCI (1984-2000). Like its precursors, the database provides citations, abstracts, and indexing of international journals in political science and related fields. Web sites are also included. WPSA's extensive journal coverage list coupled with CSA's mature search interface makes it worthy of serious consideration, even by institutions that did not subscribe to the other indexes. As of January 2002, approximately 1,100 serials were included for coverage, but the vendor notes that this number will continue to grow significantly throughout 2002-2003 as CSA focuses on acquiring more international titles.
CSA has been in business for more than thirty years, and this experience is reflected in the effective and user-centered design of their search screens. Clearly, CSA has attempted to build an interface that users can understand; it provides clear search instructions and uses accessible language, particularly in the contextual help screens. The Quick Search enables searches in the title, author, journal name, abstract,...