Arkansas Publications Index Database Launched at Mullins Library

ARKADELPHIA, Ark. — Tom W. Dillard, head of Special Collections at University Libraries, announced the launch of the Arkansas Publications Index (API) on Friday, April 15, at the Arkansas Historical Society’s annual convention at Arkadelphia. 

The API is an online database prototype of citations to information published on Arkansas subjects in selected magazines, county history journals, books and other Arkansas publications. The API can be a valuable research tool for easily identifying what has been published in the region about the state of Arkansas. For instance, if a student were to search for the words "Clinton" and "governor," the student would find three periodicals that mention Bill Clinton from the 1980s.

Dates covered by the initial 35,000 entries range from the 1880s to 2000, and topics covered include history, biography, natural science, business, folklore, genealogy and politics. The API is an ongoing project; an estimated 70,000 additional records will be added in the coming months.

Dillard said, “The Index has the potential for revolutionizing the study of Arkansas history. It will open up sources as never before. This tool will also play a leading role in teaching Arkansas history in our schools.”

The API began as a card file index to articles about the state compiled in the 1950s by Georgia Clark, head of the reference department in the University Libraries. In the late 1980s, Elizabeth Chadbourn McKee and Andrea Cantrell compiled these and other citations into a searchable database format called the Arkansas Periodical Index. The current index is a combination of these records, recent records compiled by UA Libraries’ faculty and staff and additional card file indexes unique to the University Libraries. Its structure and search features are much like those of Infolinks, the online UA Libraries’ catalog, and entries can be searched by keyword, author, article title, subject, and publication title. Moreover, the new index was developed to link directly to the relevant online catalog records.

Carolyn Henderson Allen, dean of Libraries, said, “I’m excited that this innovative tool was created here at the Libraries by our faculty and staff. We’re opening up our resources and the study of Arkansas to researchers around the world.”

The database can be found at http://arkindex.uark.edu.