The New Record window displays one record at a time. There are twenty-eight predetermined Workforms, which cover the standard paper formats for books and journals, etc., as well as Art, AV materials, Computer Programs, E-mail, Letters, Maps, Motion Pictures, Music Scores, Patents, Sound Recordings, Trade Catalogues, Video Recordings, and Web Pages. Each of these forms is composed from a combination of forty-five standard fields that follow the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standard for bibliographic references of both print and non-print items. This proves to be very beneficial for searching. For example, a researcher can be an editor, contributor to a published conference proceeding and the author of a monograph. In P4 the name of this individual would appear in three different fields among these records. Each is searchable by itself by searching for the name in a specific Field, or as a group because all the fields for editors, authors of articles and essays, translators, etc., are searchable as one special "Field". When entering data, each such Field accesses the same drop-down list to ensure consistency of names. All titles are written out in full when they are entered into records, either by typing them or by selecting them from drop-down lists. When producing a bibliography or citation, journal or series titles can be abbreviated in a variety of styles as required for different publications. All titles are entered in sentence style and when they are outputted can appear either as capitals or as sentence style as required by the publication. All Workforms also make provision for the recording of URLs, location codes (e.g., library call numbers), notes, abstracts, and key words. Diacritics can be entered by selecting the symbols button on the formatting bar, selecting the appropriate character from the window and copying.

Importing/Exporting

P4 allows the user to import down-loaded files from a number of database services, as noted above. In addition to those, it also imports from BookWhere. Those who have used previous versions of ProCite will be pleased to know that that importing is no longer done through Biblio-Link II but directly through P4. P4, unfortunately, does not allow for direct importing of competitors' databases files. Even Reference Manager, which is now owned by RIS, must be exported into the RIS format and then imported. If such a common import/export form is not available to those who wish to switch to ProCite, they must export records in a comma, or tab delimited format, then design an import style in Biblio-Link II and, finally, import the file. The only product from which P4 directly imports records is previous versions of ProCite.

Searching

Database functionality is a definite strength of P4. The Field Content Lists on the Quick Search view provides for searches by authors, journals, titles, key words, and Workforms. Selecting authors, for example, splits the window so that the list of authors is on the left and the records associated with an author's name are listed on the right and, if selected, the highlighted record on the right is previewed underneath in the Output Style selected at that time. More complex searches can be conducted in the Search window. Search strings can be typed or entered by selecting from lists provided by the software (i.e., fields and operators) and those supplied by the researcher (i.e., terms which are drawn from authors, journals, titles, key words and any term list that the user might design), or by selecting a search that was saved. Nesting of expressions within brackets is supported, e.g., "(A and B) or (X and not Y)". I conducted one search that used four levels of brackets without any difficulties. Wild cards can be used at the beginning and end of terms (e.g., *ite would find graphite or ProCite and pro* would find ProCite or professional or prophet). Internal usage of wild cards (e.g., pro*l to find professional or professorial) is not supported. In brief, searches in P4 can be as simple or as complex as a researcher requires.

Citation and Bibliography Generation

In addition to accessing records the researcher wants to be able to output records for a variety of reasons. The two main reasons would be producing bibliographies and citations with the body of a work. With P4 a bibliography is generated in two ways. The first is by tagging records in a list and outputting them in some order, such as by author, subject or chronological order. The second way is by moving from citations in a text to a bibliography of cited works that is generated from the citations.

Citations may be entered into a document in two ways. First, delimiters, such as square brackets or braces, can be used to set off identifying text such as an author's name or title words or a year or some combination of such. Once a document is completed it is scanned and a coded link to whatever database contains a particular cited work is entered into the text. If there is more than one match, the user is prompted to select the correct reference from a list of possibilities. The second way to enter citations is by using the cite-while-you-write (c) feature. Identifying text is entered into an Insert Citation dialog and a coded link is entered into the text in the same way as when a text is scanned. If citations are placed within sentences or paragraphs, i.e., if brackets are used rather than footnotes or endnotes, P4 is designed to accommodate variety of formats. Thus /d will display only the date, leaving out the author's name and /pt will place the following text at the beginning of the citation, such as in a "see also" note. Those who are not using one of the supported word processors can still use ProCite by switching between it and the word processor. The Copy Special feature under P4's Editor menu makes it possible to copy formatted citations. P4 provides thirty major Output Styles for citations and bibliographies.

As nice as these features are, however, there is one major flaw with P4. The function that exists to create the footnote/endnote/in-text note is inadequate. Only one format is possible. Thus, if one selects Turabian (Bibliography) format, different elements will be needed for a Journal citation (Analytic Author, Analytic Title [a work that is part of a whole such as a journal article or essay], Journal Title/Abbreviation, etc.) and a very different set is needed for a monograph (Monographic Author, Monographic Title and in brackets, Place of Publication, etc. Presently, the Turabian (Bibliography) configuration has an in-text citation format for ALL Workforms (Journal, Chapter, Monograph, Audio Visual, etc) that consists of Author, Analytic Title, Monograph Title, Volume Identification Number, Issue Number and Date of Publication (!!). Changing this for an specific Workform changes all others at the same time.

General Assessment

In general I find P4 to be an easy program to use. It allows for a high level of detail when entering data and a high level of sophistication for searching for records and editing. With its broad range of Workforms it will serve the needs of a very broad spectrum of users. As a database management program for researchers, professionals and students, it is excellent. Its smooth interface with the major word processors and its preview panel, which shows the highlighted record in the selected Output Style, and the complexity of formatting, all make it an excellent package. the one major detraction is the problem with the footnote/endnote/note format, which, until it is fixed, makes it useless for the general writer in the Humanities who wants an easy way to insert notes.

There are a few things that RIS can do to improve P4. One, is to ensure that the escape key can be used to exit out of all of the dialog boxes and windows. For example, in the Search window there are four buttons that open up drop-down lists for Fields, Operators, Terms and Expressions. The escape key will close three of them, but not Terms. Although a small problem, it will make for consistency and speed up such a process significantly. Another glitch in the program is the inability to scroll down a long list of Groups under the Group menu in the Quick Search window. Group names that extend beyind the the window are inaccessible to the user. This particular problem can be circumvented by using the Show feature and selecting Groups so it is not serious.

Several features, if added, would greatly enhance P4: the capacity to import, and export competitors' database files directly rather than through intermediary formats; a spell checker; searching multiple databases rather than just one; and a predesigned Book Review Workform and Output Style.