InfoTrac is a family of

full-text database A full-text database or a complete-text database is a database that contains the complete text of books, dissertations, journals, magazines, newspapers or other kinds of textual documents. They differ from bibliographic databases (which con ...

s of content from academic journals and general magazines, of which the majority are targeted to the English-speaking North American market. As is typical of online proprietary databases, various forms of authentication are used to verify affiliation with subscribing

academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichk ...

, and

school A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes comp ...

libraries. InfoTrac databases are published by

Gale A gale is a strong wind; the word is typically used as a descriptor in nautical contexts. The U.S. National Weather Service defines a gale as sustained surface winds moving at a speed of between 34 and 47 knots (, or ).Cengage Learning. InfoTrac was first publicly presented in January 1985 by Information Access Company (IAC) to library professionals at the

American Library Association The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with 49,727 members ...

's annual conference in Washington, D.C. IAC began to roll out the system to subscribing libraries in the spring of 1985. As of June 1987, the first-generation InfoTrac system cost about $20,000 and its database came on a 12-inch LaserDisc Available through

ProQuest ProQuest LLC is an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based global information-content and technology company, founded in 1938 as University Microfilms by Eugene B. Power. ProQuest is known for its applications and information services for libraries, provid ...

. which was supposed to be updated every month. Available through

. The original InfoTrac system was an immediate success at most of the libraries that tried it. One notable exception was the

University of Wyoming The University of Wyoming (UW) is a public land-grant research university in Laramie, Wyoming. It was founded in March 1886, four years before the territory was admitted as the 44th state, and opened in September 1887. The University of Wyoming ...

, which tried the system for a few months and then returned it. Apart from frequent hardware and software crashes, the original InfoTrac software could only search

Library of Congress subject headings The Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) comprise a thesaurus (in the information science sense, a controlled vocabulary) of subject headings, maintained by the United States Library of Congress, for use in bibliographic records. LC Subject ...

(that is, it could not run a global search for keywords across all text on the disc), and the lack of a standard LaserDisc digital data format meant that the system would be rendered obsolete by the creation of such a format. By January 1988, the second-generation InfoTrac II system cost only $4,000 (for optical disc equipment, computer, monitor, and printer) and its database came on a CD-ROM. Available through

. As of 1994, InfoTrac databases continued to be published on CD-ROMs which were mailed to subscribing libraries at regular intervals. In that era, when personal computers were still relatively new, many publishers were not yet licensing full text of their articles, so most publications were represented only by article abstracts. This meant the InfoTrac family of products at their inception were primarily

bibliographic database A bibliographic database is a database of bibliographic records, an organized digital collection of references to published literature, including journal and newspaper articles, conference proceedings, reports, government and legal publications, ...

s as opposed to full-text databases. Furthermore, the personal computers typically used as InfoTrac terminals operated only in

text mode Text mode is a computer display mode in which content is internally represented on a computer screen in terms of characters rather than individual pixels. Typically, the screen consists of a uniform rectangular grid of ''character cells'', each ...

, meaning that "full text" meant only text and not the article as originally published with photos and illustrations. However, InfoTrac databases were published in coordination with various microfilm products from IAC which came on sequentially numbered auto-loading cartridges, on which individual frames were also individually numbered. Most InfoTrac abstracts and full-text articles from the 1980s and 1990s have a location code at the end of the article which points to the exact frame on a

microfilm Microforms are scaled-down reproductions of documents, typically either photographic film, films or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the origin ...

cartridge where the story begins, which a library user could use to obtain a copy of the article as originally published. Infotrac carousel

With each microfilm product subscription, IAC included a large rotating carousel with slots in which the cartridges could be stored for easy access, and also sold proprietary

microfilm reader A microfilm reader is a device used in projecting and magnifying images stored in microform to readable proportions. Microform includes flat film, microfilm, aperture cards, microfiche, and ultra fiche. Using open reels or cassettes, microfilm is ...

s for its cartridges. Infotrac cartridge

The readers were able to automatically take up the loose end of the microfilm upon cartridge insertion after a second or two, while standard microfilm reels must be manually wound into a reader, which is much slower. Thus, well-funded U.S. public libraries in the 1980s and 1990s typically had several InfoTrac database terminals, several carousels of IAC cartridges, and several microfilm readers. Researchers would use the database terminals to compile a list of all the cartridge-and-frame codes for all articles they were interested in, then they would pull the corresponding cartridges from the carousels and use printers built into the readers to make photocopies of the articles as originally printed. IAC was acquired by

The Thomson Corporation The Thomson Corporation was one of the world's largest information companies. It was established in 1989 following a merger between International Thomson Organisation Ltd (ITOL) and Thomson Newspapers. In 2008, it purchased Reuters Group to fo ...

in 1995 and merged into sister company Gale in 1998. Like most database companies, Gale started offering real-time access to InfoTrac databases through a Web interface in the late 1990s (while simultaneously improving its full-text coverage). Around 2000, Gale began making scanned articles in PDF format directly available through the Web interface, thus relieving users of having to go to microfilm or hard copy to obtain as-published copies of articles. The InfoTrac brand was relaunched in 2005 on a new technology platform named Thomson Gale PowerSearch, which was named "most improved product" at the 2005 Charleston Conference. InfoTrac has also placed ninth in '' Library Journal'' list of the top 50 library brands of the millennium.

References

External links

Academic OneFile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Infotrac Cengage Commercial digital libraries American digital libraries Bibliographic databases and indexes Full-text scholarly online databases

See also

References

External links