140 likes | 149 Views
WISER: What’s new in Science SCOPUS, SCIRUS and Google Scholar. Kate Williams and Juliet Ralph May 2006. SCOPUS – New from Elsevier. Science & Social Science subjects Award-winning: “Best STM Information Product 2005” “the largest abstract and citation database”: 15,000 journal titles
E N D
WISER: What’s new in ScienceSCOPUS, SCIRUS and Google Scholar Kate Williams and Juliet Ralph May 2006
SCOPUS – New from Elsevier • Science & Social Science subjects • Award-winning: “Best STM Information Product 2005” • “the largest abstract and citation database”: • 15,000 journal titles • 27.7 million abstracts • Updated daily
SCOPUS • www.scopus.com • From 4,000 publishers – not just Elsevier • Conferences • Patents - 12.7 million records from 4 Patent Offices • Many links to full text via TOUR button
Content • Publisher-submitted records 1996 - • Medline records 1966 - • Content from other Elsevier databases*: • Embase 1970- - Fluidex 1974- • Compendex 1970- - Geobase 1980- • World Textile Index 1970- • Biobase 1994- (*Source: Deis and Goodman, 2005) • Content coverage etc at http://info.scopus.com/
14,200 2,700 2,500 4,500 5,900 Scopus: “the broadest source of STM and Social Sciences information” 4,000 publishers Life & Health (100% Medline) Chemistry Physics Engineering Biological Agricultural Environmental Social Sciences Psychology Economics STM & Social Sciences
Strengths • User friendly: • “Scopus has been designed and user-tested so you can spend less time mastering databases and more time on research” http://www.info.scopus.com/detail/how/
Strengths • Good for free-text, keyword searching • Good starting point for any science topic • Simultaneous web and patent searches • Citation searching (back to 1996) • Alerts, to keep you up to date with research • Many links to full text via TOUR button • Constantly being improved/updated!
Weaknesses • Less strong on controlled vocabulary/ subject headings • author keywords plus some indexing terms from other Elsevier databases and Medline • Citation searching more comprehensive in Web of Knowledge • Limits are less sophisticated than some other databases • Clinical queries - use Medline / PubMed
Other features • Also searches the web via SCIRUS, Elsevier’s science search engine • www.scirus.com
Scirus & Google Scholar • New internet search engines • Available to anyone, anywhere, anytime • Focus on academic material • Abstracts of journal articles, plus links to full-text if Oxford has a subscription • Also theses, books, reports, preprints etc • Advanced Search screen is offered, eg restrict by date, author, journal title
Scirus • Focus on science and medicine • Sources and content explained and listed in “About us” • Searches Journals, Preferred Web, Other Web • Wildcards for truncation • Displays most recent first • Results can be sorted by date or relevance • Results can be marked, emailed, saved
Google Scholar : Pros • All subjects covered • No advertising • Results ranked by relevance (but formula not always clear!) • “Cited by” links • “Library search” links to library catalogues • http://scholar.google.com
Google Scholar : Cons • Less clear about sources and content searched • Questions over frequency of updates • Limited search capabilities compared with bibliographic databases • Not possible to re-sort results, or mark them for emailing or saving
So why use bibliographic databases like Scopus? • Clearly listed, scholarly content • Updated weekly or daily • Indexing and subject headings • Complex searching possible • Eg using Wildcard symbols • Refine, sort, filter, limit your results • Search history can be viewed • Searches can be combined • Current awareness alerts can be set up