CAMBRIDGE, United Kingdom, May 10, 2004 - It’s a rare database that offers insights into Ethel Merman and Stephen Sondheim in the same article. It’s even more unusual to find several articles about the two. Two resources from ProQuest Information and Learning, International Index to Music Periodicals Full Text (IIMP-FT) and International Index to the Performing Arts Full Text (IIPA-FT), give researchers that opportunity, as well as enhanced features and functionality in their latest releases. ProQuest Information and Learning, a unit of ProQuest Company, creates and publishes databases for libraries and educational institutions worldwide.

If you happen to be musical theatre scholar and a fan of both Ethel Merman and Stephen Sondheim, entering both names in IIMP or IIPA will bring up some juicy revelations. In 1958, Merman thought Sondheim, then a Broadway tyro, was too inexperienced to trust with full responsibility for both score and lyrics of “Gypsy,” according to Brian Kellow’s article, “Mama’s Talkin’ Loud,” in Opera News, November 2003. She prevailed and Jule Styne composed the music.

Sondheim repaid the favor by calling Merman “a singing dog” according to Charles Isherwood’s article, “Legit Reviews: Rose of a New Color,” in Variety, May 5, 2003.

IIMP and IIPA are now COUNTER compliant. COUNTER is a new international standard for usage statistics, giving administrators a choice between COUNTER or ICOLC-based usage formats. IIMP Full Text now features JSTOR-linking for customers of both IIMP Full Text and JSTOR's Music Collection. Thirty journals indexed in IIMP Full Text, which also have full text available in JSTOR, are linked at article level; users may search the index and navigate directly to the article in the JSTOR archive. In addition, this release features a full set of durable links (OpenURL format) for all journals included in IIMP and IIPA.

Researchers in music and performing arts will find equally fascinating results for many topics in the two databases. Each offers full text of more key titles than may be found elsewhere. Full runs of journals let researchers examine the complete range of scholarship and reviews in full text beginning in 19th Century.

ProQuest’s high editorial standards for abstracting and indexing, as well as superior understanding of performing arts and musical disciplines, means that researchers don’t need multiple databases to retrieve relevant results. For example, reviews of performances or recordings can be identified quickly, or excluded from results, to support both informational and scholarly searching.

Free trials are available. For further information visit http://iipa.chadwyck.co.uk/public or http://iimp.chadwyck.co.uk/public, email marketing@proquest.co.uk or call +44(0) 1223 271227.

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