BasicBIOSIS vs. Biological Abstracts® vs. BIOSIS Previews® October 2006
BasicBIOSIS Biological Abstracts BIOSIS Previews
2002 –
(4 years + current year Electronic File 1926 – 1926 – rolling file)
Print Counterpart No Since 1926, 24 issues / year No
Total number of records ~ 400,000 > 11 million > 18 million
Records added annually > 88,000 > 350,000 > 500,000
Frequency Monthly Monthly Weekly
Source Titles < 370 > 3,700 > 5,000
Abstracts and specialized All Biological Abstracts indexing for life science Abstracts and specialized (1926-) + review literature Content Focus items in English indexing for research journals + books + meetings + unique popular science from 1926 - meeting abstracts & news sources + patents
Coverage of every area of the Coverage of virtually every life life sciences, connecting re- sciences discipline – including searchers with critical journal traditional biology (botany, ecol- coverage on topics from botany Coverage of popular ogy, zoology), interdisciplinary Discipline Coverage to microbiology to pharmacol- life sciences publications. subjects (biochemistry, biomedi- ogy. Plus, coverage includes cine, and biotechnology), and emerging new life sciences fields related areas (instrumentation such as nanobiology and geneti- and methods). cally modified foods.
Global publications and Global publications and Global Coverage English-only publications abstracts translated into English abstracts translated into English
1995 – current U.S. Patents None None 1986 – 1989
None in current Biological Meeting reports Meetings Abstracts; meeting reports Yes & summaries in backyears
MESH Disease Headings Yes Yes Yes
CAS Registry Numbers No Yes Yes
DataStar, Dialog, Ebsco, Ovid/Ovid, DIMDI, Ovid/Ovid, Ovid/ Vendors Ebsco, OCLC Ovid/SilverPlatter, TS/ISI Web of SilverPlatter, STN, TS/ISI Web Knowledge of Knowledge Search Example: Lead Poisoning
Database Results
BasicBIOSIS 65 Biological Abstracts 367 (2002-Present) BIOSIS Previews 524 (2002-Present) Biological Abstracts 2,433 (1926-Present)
Of the 367 Biological Abstracts results for “lead poisoning,” 41 are from non-English journals not indexed in BasicBIOSIS. Non-English ab- stracts are translated to English in Biological Abstracts and BIOSIS Previews.
BIOSIS Previews indexes document types not included in BasicBIOSIS or Biological Abstracts.
One result found in a BIOSIS Previews search for “lead poisoning” was a patent The top ten sources in Biological Abstracts from Mount Sinai School of Medicine. are displayed. Only two of these sources, This result is unique to BIOSIS Previews. American Journal of Public Health and Archives of Environmental Health, are also indexed in BasicBIOSIS. Search Example: Honey bee parasites
Background: The worldwide honey bee population is being seriously damaged by a parasite called the varrao mite. This has been in the news due to the impact on agriculture – there are not enough bees, not enough pollinating, not enough crops, etc.
Honey bee and mite Honey bee and parasite Database Results Database Results
BasicBIOSIS 25 BasicBIOSIS 30
Biological Abstracts Biological Abstracts 100 111 (2002-Present) (2002-Present) BIOSIS Previews BIOSIS Previews 116 125 (2002-Present) (2002-Present)
Biological Abstracts Biological Abstracts 395 317 (1926-Present) (1926-Present)
Biological Abstracts — Top Sources
Of the top 10 sources in Biological Abstracts, 7 are not indexed in BasicBIOSIS.
66 of 83 records found in these top 10 sources are not available in BasicBIOSIS.