ABSTRACTING SERVICES IN MEDICAL SCIENCES

A. NEELAMEGHAN Madras Medical College, Madras

Analyses the list of medical journals given in the World 1. Incomplete c ove r ag'e of literature due to medical periodicals. The journals a.re examined on the a) critical selection of periodicals to be basis of subject, country of publication, scrutiny by ab- covered, stracting services, periodicity, etc. Percentages of un- abstracted journals are worked out. Indicates how the in- b) critical selection of articles to be in- dexing and abstracting services have not been able to achieve dexed, complete bibliographical control in the field of . c) certain unrepresented segment of lit- erature such as unpublished theses, reports, trade literature, medical school bulletins, et c. , and d) multiplicity of languages in which the original articles are published. o INTRODUCTION

2. Duplication due to lac k of cooperation The tremendous advances in the field of among the services. medical sciences which we are witnessing in the present century has, at least partly, been 3, Time lag of anything from 4 months to made possible by the great improvements in two or three years from the first appear- the methods of assembly, organization and dis- ance of an article to the publication of its semination of the accumulating medical litera- abstract. ture. However, with all the indexing and ab- stracting services we have not as yet achieved 4. Need for an efficient system of subject complete bibliographical control of the field. classification, standardized indexing and An endless tide of information in the shape of citation procedure s. books, theses, journal articles, trade litera- ture, etc., is battering in with almost uncon- 5, Difficulties in getting the original arti- trollable rapidity. The number of services for cles quoted in the abstracts. the bibliographic control of scientific literature is increasing year after year. One sometimes feels that there are too many such services in Some of the above points are discussed and the field without any great advantage, The in- illustrated in a comparison of two abstracting adequacies of existing services may be summa- services for surgical literature in the Journal rized as: of documentation, December 1954, pp, 193-200,

Sep 1955 V 2 N 3 89 NEELAMEGHAN

1 WORLD MEDICAL PERIODICALS Certain of the services under consideration, e. g. Tropical Diseases Bulletin, Nutrition Ab- The study of abstracting services presented stracts, Chemical Abstracts, etc., are limited in this paper is based on the information given to certain subjects and this, to some extent, in World Medical Periodicals, compiled by would also limit the number of journals scrutin- L. T. Morton, and published by WHO/UNESCO, ized and als 0 the type of journals and articles 1953. It is quite certain that the four thousand abstracted by them. and odd journals listed do not exhaust all the tiles in the field. For instance, for India the list gives 47 currently published titles while there are over a hundred titles current in India 3 ANALYSIS now; the German publication Periodica Medi<;:J!:, 1952, lists some 12,000 titles including reports and other types of serials in the medical field. However, the world list may be taken to in- 31 By Agency clude all the important medical journals upto 1950, and the figure is quite impressive when we consider the fact that the ten abstracting ser- Table I gives the number of journals scrutin- vices discussed put together do not cover over ized by each of the agencies all by themselves, a thousand of the titles. "The list includes ti- in other w or ds the area in which there is no du- tles of all current medical periodicals which plication. This gives a total of 650 journals. have been traced, all medico-biological period- From Tables I and III it could be inferred that icals regularly surveyed by certain abstracting of the 3,516 currently published journals about agencies, as well as well known medical jour- 30 per cent is not covered by the ten services, nals which ceased publication during the period while over 50 per cent is scrutinized by more 1900-1950" - Preface. than one of the services.

2 ABSTRACTING SERVICES

The abstracting services considered are: TABLE I 1. American Medical Association (AMA); 2. Abstracts of World Medicine; Abstracts of Abstracting Service Number of World , Obstetrics and Gynaecology journals (AWM); 3. Biological Abstracts (BI); 4. Bul- scrutinized letin de l'Institut Pasteur (BIP); 5. British Ab- by the ser- stracts AlII (BR); 6. Bureau of Hygiene (Bul- vice only letin of Hygiene, and Tropical Diseases Bulletin (BU); 7. Chemical Abstracts (CA); 8. Excerpta American Medical Association (AMA) 144 Medica (EM); 9. Nutrition Abstracts (N); 10. Abstracts of World Medicine; Ab- Semaine des Hopitaux (SH). stracts of World Surgery, obstet- rics & Gynaecology (AWM) 152 It may be noted that the once separate pub- Biological Abstracts (BI) 22 lications Abstracts of World Medicine and Ab- Bulletin de L'lnstitut Pasteur (BIP) 9 strac.!..s._()LWo:r!~$_u..!gery, Obstetrics and Gyn- British Abstracts AlII (BR) 5 aecology have since 1952 merged under one Bureau of Hygiene. Bulletin of Hy- title Abstracts of World Medicin~. Also, Brit- giene; Tropical Diseases Bulletin ish Abstracts AliI, published by the Bureau of (BU) 6 Abstracts has now the new title Brjtish Ab- Chemical Abstracts (CA) 133 ill.a.cts of Medical Sciences (1954-). Excerpta Medica (EM) 146 Nutrition P. bstracts (N) 5 The geographical distribution of the location Semaine des Hopitaux (SH) 28 of the abstracting services noted above is: Great Britain 4, U.S.A. 3, France 2, Nether- 650 lands 1.

90 An lib sc ABSTRAC TING SERVICES IN MEDICAL SCIENCES

32 By Place of Publication China 54 46 Colombia 37 24 Analysis by place of publication of the jour- Costa Rica 5 3 nals is presented in Table II. It gives in alpha- Cuba 76 40 betic order names of 89 countries from which Cyprus 1 the journals emanate. number of journals cur- Czechoslovakia 36 12 rently published in each of those countries. and Denmark 25 2 the number not scrutinized by any of the above Dominican abstracting services as indicated in World Med- Republic 8 6 ical Periodicals. A grouping of the journals by Equador 18 15 larger geographical areas as presented in Table Egypt 8 3 III is perhaps more informative. The geograph- Eritrea 1 ical regions are Europe. Africa. Asia. Latin Esthonia 1 America. U. S. A. and Canada. Australia and Finland 12 2 New Zealand. Of the 1.630 journals currently France 231 24 published in Europe about 19 per cent are not French Equator- scrutinized; in Asia 54.6 per cent of her 272 ial Africa 1 1 journals are unabstracted; in Latin Arnerica French West the percentage of unabstracted journals is 54.8 Africa 1 out of the 912 published journals; of the North Germany 187 39 American journals 13.6 per cent is not covered; Greece 24 16 for United States alone about one-eight the to- Guatemala 5 4 tal number of periodicals published are not scru- Haiti 4 3 tinized. and many of these are local society or Honduras 3 3 medical department publications. Of the 38 Hongkong 2 1 journals of Africa 5 are not covered while 18.2 Hungary 29 '7 per cent of the 22 journals from Australia/New Iceland 1 Zealand are not scrutinized. For the whole India 47 9 world the figures are 1062 or 30.2 per cent of Indonesia 4 1 the 3.516 journals currently published are not Iraq 1 covered by the agencies under discussion. Ireland 5 Israel 8 3 TABLE II Italy 267 25 Jamaica 2 1 Japan 124 Country of Number cur- Number not 89 Kenya 1 Publication rently pub- abstracted Korea 1 lished Lebanon 4 Albania 1 1 Lybia 1 Algeria 7 1 Lithuania 1 Argentina 207 94 Luxembourg 1 1 Australia 19 3 Malaya. F. M. S. 4 1 Austria 31 7 Mexico 91 53 Azerbaijan 1 1 Morocco 2 Belgian Congo 1 Netherlands 60 9 Belgium 64 15 New Zealand 3 1 Bolivia 17 16 Nicaragua 5 5 Brazil 212 105 Norway 9 2 British Guina 1 Pakistan 2 Bulgaria 14 8 Panama 3 1 Canada 48 11 Paraguay 8 6 Ceylon 3 Persia 3 2 Chile 68 40 Peru 37 13

Sep 1955 V 2 N 3 91 NEELAMEGHAN

Philippine s 10 2 Journals from Asia and Latin America seem Poland 46 18 to fare worst. In Asia, however, the high per- Portugal 44 10 centage of unabstracted journals is mainly due Rumania 17 6 to the high percentage of unabstracted journals Salvador (El) 9 7 of China and Japan (85/'0 and 66. 4% r e epect ive'ly ), South Africa, Many of these journals from these countries Union of 12 contain articles in the national languages and Spain 99 19 this may be one of the reasons for the highper- Sweden 42 9 centage of unscrutinized journals coming from Switzerland 87 14 there. That language may be one of the rea- Thainland 5 4 sons for non sc.rutiny of journals by abstracting Trieste 1 services is also borne out by the Greek j our , Trinidad & nals. Many of the journals from Greece contain Tobago 1 articles in Greek and the percentage of unab- Tunisia 3 1 stracted journals for the country is as high as Turkey 28 9 66.7. On the other hand, from India almost all U.S.S.R. 47 10 scientific writing is in English and the pe:r:cent- Ukraine 10 3 age of unabstracted journals is only 19. 2 per United Kingdom 189 29 cent (Of course, as already noted, the list does U.S.A. 591 76 not contain all the Indian medical journals). The Hawaii 3 neglect of Latin American journals may be ra- Uruguay 50 3 ther puzzling. The large number (912) of jour- Uzbekistan 2 1 nals and the fewer (21) mergers or cessations Venezuela 39 24 might be an indication of great continued scien- Viet Nam 1 tific activity of the area. However, there are Yugoslavia 16 6 not many worthwhile periodicals in the big list, many of them are published by individual doc- tors or clinics.

33 By Subject

TABLE III Table IV analyses the position according to topics in the biomedical field. Under 83 alpha- betically arranged subjects as per World Med- ical Periodicals, are given the number of jour- nals currently published in each of the subjects and the number of unabstracted journals. A Region Number of Number of Percent- large number of titles because of their compre- journals journals un- age of (3) hensive coverage of the field cannot be assigned current abstracted to (2) to any particular heading and so are grouped (1 ) (2) (3) (4) under the heading Medicine (General). A few journals find a place under Medicine as well as Europe 1,630 309 18.9 Surgery. This alphabetic arrangement of sub- Africa 38 5 12.9 jects may not be revealing much except for in- Asia 272 157 54.6 formation on the abstracting of journals in in- Latin dividual subjects. America 912 500 54.8 U.S.A & TABLE IV Canada 642 87 13.6 Austral'ia/ Subject Number of Number of New Zea- journals journals land 22 4 18.2 current unabstracted

3.516 1,062 30.2 Alcoholism 5 Allergy 8 2

92 An lib sc ABSTRACTING SERVICES IN MEDICAL SCIENCES

Anaesthesia 9 1 Microbiology 52 6 Anatomy 22 4 Microscopy 7 Anthropology 10 Military & Naval Aviation med- Medicine 52 21 icine 8 Mycology 3 1 Biochemistry 30 1 Neurology & Biology, General 78 6 Psych. 141 36 Cancer 42 14 Neurosurgery 9 2 Cardiovascular Nutrition 44 9 system 39 5 Occupational Chemistry 18 1 Ther. & Re- 43 8 habil. 5 3 Diabetes 3 Odontology 155 94 Embryology 8 97 30 Endoc rinology 32 7 Orthopaedic s 29 2 Entomology 5 Otolaryngology 71 13 Epidemiology & Paediatric s 129 36 Vital Statistics 5 10 Parasitology 27 3 Gastroenterology 26 4 Pathology 60 13 Genitourinary Pharmacology 26 7 system 30 8 Pharmacy 94 15 Geriatrics 2 Photography 3 1 Gynaec. & Obst. 86 7 Physical Educ. 7 4 Haematology 10 2 Physiology 42 5 Heredity 20 1 Physiotherapy 15 4 Histology 14 2 5 2 Hist. of Med. 20 7 Proctology 3 Hospitals 16 3 Psychology 33 3 Hydrology & Radiology 46 12 Climatology 8 4 Respiratory sys. 18 Hygiene & Pub. Rheumatism 11 Health 206 106 Science, General 43 1 Immunology 20 2 Serology 5 1 Indus. Hygiene 47 10 Sexology 5 3 Infectious Dis. 12 3 Social Medicine 27 8 Insurance Med. 4 1 Speech Disorders 5 Jurisprudence, Stomatology 23 7 Medical 21 8 Surgery 191 48 Leprosy 17 10 Technical Meth. 5 Malaria 9 2 Therapeutics 43 6 Maternity & Child Toxicology 2 Welfare 9 5 Tropical Med. 41 6 Medicine, Gen- Tuberculosis 84 18 eral 1020 420 Venereology 42 10 Medicine, Veterinary Med. 60 18 Bibliog. 7 1 Zoology 15 1 Medicine, Ethics 3 1 Medicine, Experim. 55 5 34 By Preliminary Disciplines Medicine, Or- ganization & In Table V the grouping is according to Policy 16 1 br oader headings:

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1. Disciplines preliminary to the study of TABLE V medicine: the percentage of unabstracted jour- nals varies from l. 4 (Science) to 16.7 (Anat- omy). Subject Number Number Percent- of jour- of jour- age of 2. General medical journals, Pathology, nals nals (2) to Hygiene and Preventive medicine: Here the per- current current (3) centage of unabstracted journals is about 40. (1) (2 ) (3) (4) 3. Regional diseases: The percentage of Group 1 unabstracted journals varies from 5 (Locomo- tor system) to 30.2 (Reproductive system) with Science 43 1 2.4 an average of 20 per cent. Chemistry 18 1 5.6 Biology 113 7 6.3 4. The specialities (excluding ).: Bioc hemistry 30 1 3.3 The percentage of unabstracted journals varies Zoology 15 1 6.7 from 12.5 (Obstetrics and Gynaecology) to 33 Microbiology 242 39 16.1 (Ophthalmology) . Medical Tech- nology 8 1 12.5 Anthropology 10 Dentistry needs to be considered as a sep- Anatomy 36 6 16.7 arate speciality not within the purview of the Physiology 50 5 10.0 above abstracting services. Group 2

It would appear that disciplines preliminary Pathology & to the study of medicine particularly the gener- General Med. 1,221 461 37.8 al sciences, viz. Science, Chemistry, Biology, Hygiene and Zoology, are the most well covered by the ab- Public Health 350 14~ 42.2 stracting services. However, it is to be r ern ern . Group 3 bered that the list contains only the "medico- biological periodicals regularly surveyed by cer- Respiratory tain abstracting services." Secondly, among systern 76 13 17.1 the services under consideration are Chemical Cardiovascular Abstracts and Biological Abstracts which ar~ system 39 5 12.4 fairly comprehensive in their respective fields Haernatopoetic (scrutinizes over 5230 journals and BI about systern 10 2 20.0 4,500). Gastrointestinal systern 52 11 21. 1 Group 2, General medical journals, etc., Endocrine which contains the largest percentage of unab- systern 32 7 21. 9 stracted journals has a large number of the un- Locornotor abstracted journals from Latin America, China systern 40 2 5.0 and Japan. Urogenital systern 30 8 26.7 Articles pertaining to the history of medic- Reproductive ine appear also in periodicals other than those s y st e m 47 13 30.2 devoted purely to medical history. For the Neurology & medical historian a separate indexing or ab- Psychology 188 41 21. 8 stracting service collecting all these papers Group 4 may be most helpful. We do have now one such service in Current Work in the History of Med- Surgery 257 72 28.0 ~ (1954-) published by the Wellcome Histor- Obst. Gynaec. 95 12 12.5 ical Medical Library. Paediatrics 129 36 28.0

94 An lib sc ABSTRACTING SERVICES IN MEDICAL SCIENCES

Dermatology 43 8 18.6 cent of all types; then come the Quarterlies Ophthalmology 97 30 33.0 (19.9 per cent) and then the 'Unknowns' (14.5 Forensic Med. per cent). If the 'Irregulars' and 'Unknowns' &: Toxicol. 23 8 35.0 are considered together, the combined group T'r opi cal Med. 41 6 14.6 would be the second most numerous type (26.6 per cent). The number of journals not scrutinized by the three abstracting services Abstracts of 35 By Periodicity World Medicine (AWM), American Medical Association (AMA), and Excerpta Medica (EM) were counted in each of the groups. Coverage The journals, excluding indexing and abstrac- by the three services collectively is highest in ting journals, indicated as currently published the case of Quarterlies, over 90 per cent of the ate grouped into Weeklies, Bimonthlies, journals being scrutinized; the next be s.t cover- Monthlies, etc. In the group of Weeklies are age is for Weeklies and Bimonthlies (81 per cent included those journals issued 40-85 times a in each category). For the 508 journals of the year; Monthlies include those issued 8-14 'Unknown' group no indication of abstracting by times a year; those issued 3 -4 times a year the services is given. Nearly half the number are included in the Quarterlies, while those is- of the Irregulars are not covered by the three sued 5- 7 times a year are in the Bimonthlies. services. In the combined group of Irregulars In the category of 'Unknowns' are those journals and 'Unknowns' the percentage of unscrutinized for which no information as to frequency is given .journals is over 75 per cent. in the list. Incidentally the Table indicates that the three From the appended table it may be seen that services AWM, AMA, EM scrutinize collectively Monthlies form the most numerous, 29.4 per only 60 per cent of the journals listed.

TABLE VI

Type No. currently Percentage to Number of Percentage of published total number journals not 4 to 2 of journals scrutinized by AWM, AMA, EM

1 2 3 4 5

Weeklies 85 2.4 16 19.0 Semi-monthlies 85 2.4 35 41.1 Monthlies 1,016 29.4 293 28.8 Bimonthlies 464 13.3 88 19.0 Quarterlies 687 19.9 61 8.9 Half-yearlies 58 1.6 17 30.0 Yearlies 165 4.6 59 35.8 Irregulars 420 12.0 199 47.4 Unknowns 508 14.5 508 100.0

3, 487 1,376 39.4

Sep 7955 V 2 N 3 95 NEELAMEGHAN

4 COVERAGE of its abstract that certain of the services scru- tinize over a hundred journals all by t.hern s elv e s , COITlplete and absolute coverage of rn edi ca I Hence for comprehensive bibliographical search literature is neither possible nor is it absolutely we have to look into all the services with the essential. There will always be a few papers hope of getting a few more references f r orn the which will have to go unindexed at least f r orn non-duplicated journals and also that in one ser- the point of view of keeping the cost of the ser- vice certain articles would be indexed earlier vices at a reasonable level. That there is need than in another. for better coverage of journals as well as artic- Publication of articles in languages not les is quite evident. That there is need for co- 'popular' in the scientific world has, as already operation arn ong the services has long been noted, been one of the reasons for non-scrutiny' stressed. In Table VII the extent of duplication of of some journals by the abstracting agencies. journal titles between AMA, AWM, and EM are On the other hand one can make out a case for indicated; if we are to consider the journals the agencies publishing English abstracts devot- scrutinized by these three services alone then ing special attention to these articles giving as the percentage of duplication will be higher. full abstracts as possible.

BIP, BR, BU, N, SH add only 53 fresh ti- tles to the list covered by AMA, AWM, BI and TABLE VII CA. The last rrre nt iorre d covers mostly chem- ical and pharmaceutical journals and the field Abstracting Services Nurnb e r of Percentage may be left to it; although on its list of journals in c orribi nat ion journals of the nUITl- for scrutiny are many medical journals it is ex- scrutin- ber of jour- pected that it would abstract only those articles ized by nals scru- which fall within its subject purview avoiding the ser- tinized by duplication with the general rne di cal abstracting vices in the com- services. The extent of duplication between BR, c OITlbi- bination to certain section of BI and EM Sec. 2 must be nation total num- quite appreciable. ber of jour- For clinical medicine and surgery we have nals scru- AMA, AWM and EM. AWM although scrutin- tinized by izes quite a large nurnb er of journals, is very the 10 ser- selective of the papers. The 144 journals scru- vices tinized by AMA alone are mainly those of U. S. A. and South America. Since its inception in 1947 31. 8 AMA, AWM, EM 779 EM has expanded into several sections and AMA, AWM 1,044 42.0 greatly improved in the matter of coverage of AMA, EM 900 36. 7 journals as well as articles. There is rnu ch AWM, EM 953 38.7 scope for its improvement, it is true, but it is becoming more and more accepted as a com- We have noted that for various reasons there prehensive medical abstracting service in the is a t irrie lag of 4 months to year s from the English speaking world (See also, Journal of t irn e of publication of a paper to the publication DocuITlentation, De c erribe r 1954, pp.193-200).

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