The Charleston Advisor / January 2007 www.charlestonco.com 15 Author’s Selected References Contact Information Beall, J. “CSA Illumina.” Charleston Adviser 6, no. 4 (2005): 57. SPORTDiscus Retrieved Tuesday, November 14, 2006 from Charleston Adviser EBSCO Publishing http://www.charlestonco.com/review.cfm?id=224&CFID=1230560&C 10 Estes Sreet FTOKEN=42117712>. Ipswich, MA 01938-0682 “CSA Debuts Illumina(Cambridge Scientific Abstracts Launches Phone: (800) 653-2726 Online Service).” Computers in Libraries 37, no, 1 (March 2005): 25. Fax: (978) 356-6565 Retrieved November 14, 2006, from Computer Database via Thomson E-mail: <[email protected]> Gale. URL: <http://www.ebsco.com/home/> Keane, Edward. “EBSCOhost Electronic Journal Service.” Charleston Physical Education Index Advisor 4, no. 2 (2002): 25–28. Library, Information Science and Cambridge Scientific Abstracts Technology Abstracts, EBSCOhost (accessed November 15, 2006). 7200 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 601 Bethesda, MD 20814 About the Authors Phone: (800) 843-7751 Pam Howard has subject responsibility for kinesiology and health sci- Fax: (301) 961-6720 ences at J. Paul Leonard Library, an Francisca State, San Francisco, E-mail: <[email protected]> California. She has graduate degrees in Food and Agricultural URL: <http://www-uk1.csa.com/> Economics and Library and Information Science. She has been pub- lished in the field of genetics and agricultural economics and submit- ted an article in education. Authentication Marcia Henry has been the Health Sciences Librarian and Database SPORTDiscus (EBSCO) and Physical Education Index (CSA) is IP Coordinator at California State University Northridge since 1985. She authenticated. was trained as a MEDLARS searcher in 1968, interned at DIALOG in 1977, and has had many articles and one book published, mostly related to online searching. In recent years, she added a subject specialization for kinesiology, leisure studies and recreation and athletics. I M ADVISOR REVIEWS––COMPARATIVE REVIEW Update on Scopus and Web of Science Date of Review: December 6, 2006, using the databases available on December 4–5, 2006 Scopus Composite Score: ### 7/8 Reviewed by: David Goodman previously Associate Professor Web of Science Composite Score: ### 7/8 Palmer School of Library and Information Science Long Island University <[email protected]> and Louise Deis Science and Technology Reference Librarian Princeton University Library <[email protected]> his update discusses the status of Scopus from Elsevier and BACKGROUND Web of Science from Thomson as seen at the end of 2006. It is In our previous review, we stated of Scopus that “In our opinion, the T based on what actually is working, regardless of whether the underlying data is not of the degree of completeness that released prod- publisher considers it released or beta, because some features seem to ucts from major vendors usually posses” and in the update, we said be in both categories. It should be read in conjunction with our previ- “the publisher claimed to have filled in the missing data in the 1996+ ous review “Web of Science (2004 version) and Scopus” in The portion,... [but we found] that Scopus had not...” Charleston Advisor (Vol. 6, Number 3, January 2005 <http://charlestonco.com/comp.cfm?id=43>), our update on Scopus in Content We are now pleased to be able to report that Scopus filled The Charleston Advisor (Vol. 7, Number 3, January 2006 in its 1996+ content and contains essentially all available 1996+ issues <http://charlestonco.com/comp.cfm?id=55>) and also Susan of the 14,000 science and social science titles it claims to contain, with Fingerman’s excellent review, just published in Issues in Science and the exception of some gaps in minor or irregular titles, as analyzed by Technology Librarianship (Fall 2006 <http://www.istl.org/06-fall/ us and others. For this period, it continues to have a wider coverage of electronic2.html>). All three articles are Open Access. journals than Web of Science (WoS), including more European and 16 Advisor Reviews / The Charleston Advisor / January 2007 www.charlestonco.com Scopus Review Scores Composite: ### 7/8 The maximum number of stars in each category is 5. Coverage: ### Post-1996 coverage is excellent, pre-1996 coverage still is grossly deficient. Usability: #### 1/2 Excellent but with some features not obvious. Pricing: ### Extremely expensive by normal database standards. Contract: ##### Standard. third world journals, especially those in languages other than English. At the beginning, there were a few significant differences in the way Both Scopus and WoS include monographs and symposia published the basic search functions worked. One remains: Scopus does auto- in series, but Scopus also covers many additional unnumbered sym- matic truncation, which cannot be turned off, even in the advanced posia. Most observable differences in items covered between the two search mode. The other difference is no longer present: The default are due to editorial material, supplements, and special issues: neither search operator for Scopus was AND, while for WoS it was “Exact service gets them all, but Scopus seems a little better. Phrase.” Those unaware of this found many more results from Scopus when testing such word pairs. WoS dealt with the problem by chang- Pre-1996 Content For the pre-1996 period, Scopus’ coverage ing its default operator to AND. remains erratic. Almost all journals with long publication histories have most of their content omitted: only 297 of the boasted 25 mil- Citation Analysis The features in the two databases are almost iden- lion articles were published before 1963. The journal list in Scopus tical in essence and very similar in appearance. Scopus introduced a now makes this easy to determine and clarifies coverage by indicat- tabular “Citation overview”; WoS has a remarkably similar “Citation ing which journals ceased publication, although it does not specifi- Report,” with some useful added graphic displays. Scopus has had from cally indicate the dates of cessations and title changes. We continue the beginning a “Refine Results” faceted search; WoS now has one to find no systematic pattern. As one of their representatives said ear- called just the same, but that offers a few additional useful choices, as lier “it is really two databases”; and we continue to deplore that the described by Susan Fingerman. The WoS report also shows the “h- publisher does not make this division clear at the onset, perhaps by index,” a number showing the relative citation importance of a paper having two check boxes: 1996+ and pre-1996 (incomplete). WoS cov- (unlike Impact Factors, which apply only to entire journals).1 ers material back to 1900, if one pays a good deal extra. There are sev- WoS, for some time, has had analytical capabilities for ranking records eral different journal lists (and several more at <scientific. by author, country, document type, institution name, language, publica- thomson.com/mjl>, which do not require a subscription), but for indi- tion year, journal title, and subject category. This now works quickly on cations of title changes one must follow links to Journal Citation any set of up to the system maximum for search results (100,000 records) Reports and Ulrich’s. and presents an immediately understandable bar graph showing the num- Interface and Functionality Scopus had an extraordinarily good ber in each group. Although very slick, it does not actually add any infor- interface to start with and improved some relatively trivial elements. mation beyond that provided by the “Refine results” feature. Web of Science was difficult for a beginner and old-fashioned in Scopus has nothing comparable that is ready for use. Since its intro- appearance; despite trivial improvements, it still is. Some features, such duction, it has had functioning beta displays in “Scopus labs” that unfor- as alerts, are hidden in unexpected places; and there are two help sys- tunately still can be used only for a subset of the records. They include tems, each covering a separate set of functions. We are aware of some a bar graph of the number of hits for each term in the search query, a major changes planned for later in 2007; since Thomson has now emu- line graph of the number of hits for each year, and a bar graph of the lated Elsevier by advertising not-yet-released features before they are number of records containing particular authors, affiliations, journals, ready, very cautious trials are suggested. or key words. Unless significant added functionality becomes avail- One basic difference in functionality remains. WoS easily can perform able, these add little to the information shown in the existing “Refine direct searches for cited articles, although it has the associated diffi- results” feature, except to add a few fields to those that can be sorted. culty that it is first necessary to decide whether to do a general search Author Analysis Finding articles is a problem: There are too many or a cited reference search. With Scopus, it first is necessary to find the authors. Most indexes have made matters worse by using only initials, cited article. (It is also possible to do such searches on Scopus by using even at the cost of introducing ambiguity. Scopus began using full first special fields in the advanced search mode or by simply searching for names, if available, for some or all of the articles; and beginning in the correct names in the general search mode in “All Fields,” which 2006, WoS has been doing the same. Scopus does not display the full includes the cited references.) The Charleston Advisor / January 2007 www.charlestonco.com 17 Web of Science Review Scores Composite: ### 7/8 The maximum number of stars in each category is 5. Coverage: #### 1/2 Continued weakness with non-English-language journals. Useability: ### 1/2 Continued problems with usability. Price: ## 1/2 Extremely expensive by normal database standards, and backfiles have to be purchased separately.