Comparing Unique Title Coverage of Web of Science and Scopus in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.

Abstract

The current journal titles in earth and atmospheric sciences, that are unique to each of two databases, Web of Science and Scopus, were identified using different methods. Comparing by subject category shows that Scopus has hundreds of unique titles, and Web of Science just 16. The titles unique to each database have low SCImago Journal Rank Indicators (Scopus) and Impact Factors (Web of Science), thus indicating that the unique titles play a minor role within this discipline. An author affiliation search reveals that both databases cover most of the important literature in earth and atmospheric sciences. In subject searches, the titles unique to each database depend upon the specific topic searched. Most of the earth and atmospheric sciences doctoral-granting institutions in the United States subscribe to Web of Science rather than Scopus, while some institutions apparently consider these databases complementary, and subscribe to both of them, in spite of their high subscription costs. Our method of comparing large numbers of titles among different databases needs only a word processor and is readily applicable to any subject area or applicable even to the entire lists of journals in any set of databases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]