The H. W. Wilson Company, Inc. is a publisher and indexing company that was founded in 1898 and is located in

The Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

, New York. It provides print and digital content aimed at patrons of public school, college, and professional libraries in both the United States and internationally. The company also provides indexing services that include text, retrospective, abstracting and indexing, as well other types of

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases sp ...

s. Image gallery indexing includes art museum and cinema. The company also indexed reference monographs. An online retrieval system with various features, including language translation, is also available. The company merged with

EBSCO Publishing EBSCO Information Services, headquartered in Ipswich, Massachusetts, is a division of EBSCO Industries Inc., a private company headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. EBSCO provides products and services to libraries of very many types around the ...

in June 2011.

Grey House Publishing Grey House Publishing is an American publisher of directories and other reference books in business, health, education and other areas. Its corporate headquarters are in Amenia, New York. It also has a Canadian office in Toronto. In 2013, Grey ...

currently publishes print editions of H. W. Wilson products under license.

History

The H. W. Wilson Company was founded in 1898 by Halsey William Wilson, a student working his way through the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

, Minneapolis. Together with his roommate, Henry S. Morris, Wilson started a book selling business serving educators and students at the university. When it was time for Morris to graduate, he sold his share of the business to Wilson. The H. W. Wilson Company's first original reference title was the ''Cumulative Book Index'', first published in 1898. This was followed by the ''

Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature ''The Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature'' is a reference guide to recently published articles in periodical magazines and scholarly journals, organized by article subject. ''The Readers' Guide'' has been published regularly since 1901 by ...

'' in 1901. In 1911, Wilson relocated the company to

White Plains, New York (Always Faithful) , image_seal = WhitePlainsSeal.png , seal_link = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = U.S. state, State , su ...

, to be nearer to its main markets. By 1917, demand for more specialized indexes had grown to the point where the company had to move again. Wilson bought a five-story building in The Bronx on the banks of the Harlem River. The building's distinctive lighthouse was added in 1929.

Merger with EBSCO Publishing, June 2011

On June 2, 2011, H. W. Wilson Company merged with

. Staff at the Dublin office of the company went to the Labour Court in Ireland and protested at EBSCO's failure to abide by its recommendations. Wilson's Bronx headquarters with its iconic lighthouse is not included in the merger and will be closed. Wilson's operations will relocate to EBSCO headquarters in

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line r ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

which “offers room for expansion and is the logical choice for streamlining physical operations. While not always easy, making fiscally-responsible decisions such as this will allow us oinvest more resources into increasing the value of the products and services that we create, and keep costs in check for our mutual companies” said Sam Brooks, EBSCO Publishing senior vice president, sales and marketing.

Products

The company also published some print references, such as ''Facts About the Presidents'', ''Famous First Facts'', and the monthly

magazine A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combinatio ...

Current Biography ''Current Biography'' is an American monthly magazine published by the H. W. Wilson Company of New York City, a publisher of reference books, that appears every month except December. ''Current Biography'' contains profiles of people in the news a ...

''.

John Cotton Dana Library Public Relations Award

The

John Cotton Dana Award The John Cotton Dana Library Public Relations Award, usually referred to as the John Cotton Dana Award, is an annual award given by Core: Leadership, Infrastructure, Futures, American Library Association for excellence in library public relations. ...

, sponsored by H.W. Wilson, honors outstanding library public relations, whether a summer reading program, a year-long centennial celebration, fundraising for a new college library, an awareness campaign, or an innovative partnership in the community. Award winners receive a cash development grant of $5,000 from the H.W. Wilson Foundation. The awards are presented at a reception hosted by H.W. Wilson Company, held during 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 a ...

's annual conference.

Database descriptions

Applied Sciences

H. W. Wilson Company's applied sciences indexing encompasses services under the title ''Applied Science & Technology''. These are "abstracts", "full text", and "retrospective". Broad subject coverage includes the major scientific disciplines and their respective sub disciplines in abstracts or full text. For example, topical coverage includes

acoustics Acoustics is a branch of physics that deals with the study of mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including topics such as vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician ...

, environmental and

earth sciences Earth science or geoscience includes all fields of natural science related to the planet Earth. This is a branch of science dealing with the physical, chemical, and biological complex constitutions and synergistic linkages of Earth's four sphere ...

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...

(chemical, civil, environmental, electrical, industrial, etc.),

geological sciences Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Eart ...

(including space science), food industry (and sciences), plastics, textile industry (including fabrics), transportation, and waste management. The retrospective indexing of Applied Science and Technology covers more than 1,350 periodicals from 1913 to 1983. ''Applied Science & Technology'' covers over 780 periodicals, as well as sources such as conference proceedings and directories.

Art indexes

H. W. Wilson Company's indexing pertaining to art encompasses "Art Abstracts", "Art Full Text", "Art Index", and "Art Index Retrospective: 1929-1984". It includes 304 full-text journals that focus on fine art, decorative art, commercial art, photography, folk art, film, architecture and other areas. Subjects covered include art history and criticism, architecture and architectural history, archaeology, antiques, museum studies, graphic arts, industrial design, landscape architecture, interior design, folk art, painting, photography, pottery, sculpture, decorative arts, costume design, television, video, motion pictures, advertising art, non-western art, textiles and other related subjects.

WilsonWeb

WilsonWeb is "an online based information retrieval system that offers an interface, multiple search modes, interactive help messages, and text translation into various languages".

References

External links

*
The H.W. Wilson Company History

About WilsonWeb
Nova Southeastern University. 2013. {{Authority control Bibliographic database providers Publishing companies of the United States Publishing companies established in 1889 Companies based in the Bronx 1889 establishments in New York (state) Highbridge, Bronx American corporate subsidiaries EBSCO Industries 2011 mergers and acquisitions