Abstract
Objectives: Compare journal coverage of abstract and indexing tools commonly used within academic science and engineering research. Methods: Title lists of Compendex, Inspec, Reaxys, SciFinder, and Web of Science were provided by their respective publishers. These lists were imported into Excel and the overlap of the ISSN/EISSNs and journal titles was determined using the VLOOKUP command, which determines if the value in one cell can be found in a column of other cells. Results: There is substantial overlap between the Web of Science’s Science Citation Index Expanded and the Emerging Sources Citation Index, the largest database with 17,014 titles, and Compendex (63.6%), Inspec (71.0%), Reaxys (67.0%), and SciFinder (75.8%). SciFinder also overlaps heavily with Reaxys (75.9%). Web of Science and Compendex combined contain 77.6% of the titles within Inspec. Conclusion: Flat or decreasing library budgets combined with increasing journal prices result in an unsustainable system that will require a calculated allocation of resources at many institutions. The overlap of commonly indexed journals among abstracting and indexing tools could serve as one way to determine how these resources should be allocated.
Highlights
The overlap of commonly indexed journals among abstracting and indexing tools could serve as one way to determine how these resources should be allocated
While A&I tools have long represented the gold standard means of discovering literature across many disciplines within the academy, Google Scholar has emerged as the preferred literature searching tool for many user communities
The authors will suggest that in order to maintain relevance and to continue creating value for research libraries, A&I tools must offer additional features beyond facilitating keyword searching of titles and abstracts
Summary
Compare journal coverage of abstract and indexing tools commonly used within academic science and engineering research. Methods: Title lists of Compendex, Inspec, Reaxys, SciFinder, and Web of Science were provided by their respective publishers. These lists were imported into Excel and the overlap of the ISSN/EISSNs and journal titles was determined using the VLOOKUP command, which determines if the value in one cell can be found in a column of other cells. STEM Abstracting and Indexing (A&I) Tool Overlap Analysis Abstract Continued
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