What do the Eiffel Tower and Compendex have in common?

They both go back to 1884. That's right! Compendex, the Engineering Index Backfile database extends coverage back to 1884 and is available for online searching. Someone actually re-keyed these 1.7 million records and they have been purchased for your research needs. http://www.lib.iastate.edu/collections/db/compdx.html

GeoRef update:

Loyal users of the GeoRef database will be pleased to know they will no longer be experiencing those pesky "turn aways" caused by too many folks using the database just when they need it most. GeoRef now allows an UNLIMITED number of simultaneous users. It indexes the literature of geology and earth sciences from North American publications dating back to 1785, and world wide publications from 1933.