A perspective on secondary access services in the humanities

Secondary access services for the humanities have been in existence since 1910 and six of these indexes are also now available for online searching. Profiles of these services are drawn from information supplied either by their editors or from available literature. The evolution of some of these services from print to online availability is discussed as are the user and database characteristics which make humanists reluctant to use these services in their machine‐readable forms. The resulting lack of use of humanities databases is discussed as are the marketing responsibilities of both vendors and producers. The current state of the humanities database producers' view of themselves as a unique group with unique problems and concerns and current trends toward standardization in humanities databases are reviewed.