"We Send Science Around the World"
"We Send Science Around the World"
You put great effort into making your journal a high-quality source of authoritative information. To complete the job, you need to do everything possible to make that information available to those who need it. To help you accomplish this, there are many excellent indexing and abstracting resources that guide researchers and students to the articles in your journal that they really need in their work.
The purpose of this newsletter is to help you understand how indexing and abstracting services enhance your journal's value to researchers and strengthen its position in the library subscription market. We also suggest specific action you can take to make sure that your journal is listed in the bibliographic resources that cover its subject matter.
In the past few years, the electronic transmission of information has made great changes in the ways that readers search journal indexes/abstracts. Campus-wide networking of information sources, online article search and delivery services, and, increasingly, electronic delivery of full articles are creating a demand for services that provide not just references to articles, but the articles themselves. This newsletter brings you up to date on these developments and points out factors you will need to consider in responding to these changes.
In our research for this newsletter, we have been fortunate to have the assistance of Debora L. Madsen of Kansas State University's Farrell Library. Ms. Madsen has interviewed numerous librarians to acquire real-world information about how faculty and students use indexing and abstracting resources in major research libraries. She has also contacted leading indexing and abstracting services to learn about their criteria and procedures for selecting publications. Ms. Madsen's own perspectives as a professional librarian have been very helpful in the preparation of this newsletter.
We strongly recommend that you play an active role in having your journal selected for coverage by the appropriate indexing and abstracting services. We hope you will find this newsletter a source of useful ideas for increasing your journal's accessibility to its intended readers.
John Breithaupt
Division Director
Allen Marketing & Management
by
Ralph DeSoignie
Promotions Manager
Allen Marketing & Management
The vast amount of scholarly literature available today can make it a daunting task for researchers to find the articles they need. This is why access to indexing and abstracting reference works is one of the most heavily used services provided by libraries. For a scholarly journal, being indexed and abstracted in the appropriate bibliographic resources can increase the journal's impact on current research and literature.
Articles in journals that are widely indexed and abstracted are more likely to be read and cited than those in journals that lack this advantage. This in turn influences a library's assessment of the demand for a journal by its patrons, and it is a significant factor in the decision whether to retain or acquire
a journal.
The purpose of this newsletter is to increase publishers' awareness of how indexing and abstracting services affect the use of their journals by scholars and students. We will illustrate this with detailed information about some of the leading indexing and abstracting services and their criteria for selecting the publications to be referenced. We will then discuss the impact of electronic media on the access to bibliographic works and the implications for delivery of full article texts. Finally, we suggest action publishers can take to increase the reach of their journals through indexing and abstracting.
Indexing and abstracting publications are to journal literature what card catalogues used to be for a library's holdings: the primary means of finding what is available. In an indexing resource, the researcher can find relevant bibliographic references listed by subject, by author, or by journal title. Abstracting resources provide a brief summary of each article in addition to the bibliographic references.
The greatest demand for these resources comes from university faculty, researchers, and graduate students. These users focus on specialized subject indexes/abstracts, such as Index Medicus/MEDLINE, Chemical Abstracts, Biological Abstracts, and Physics Abstracts. There are hundreds more of these resources, some of them on highly specialized, narrow subjects (for example, Coal Abstracts, Potato Abstracts). The most frequently used sources are available on CD-ROM as well as in print format. The CD-ROM format allows for more sophisticated search operations, and once users become comfortable with this medium they tend to prefer it to the print format.
In addition to the individual publications, the major online search services offer many of the same databases of indexes/abstracts and provide enhanced search capabilities, such as searching multiple databases at one time and eliminating duplicate citations. For example, DIALOG provides online searching of some 500 active databases in a broad spectrum of disciplines, including business, humanities, and the sciences.
At a less specialized level, the indexes published by the H W Wilson Company, such as the Social Sciences Index and the Humanities Index, are heavily used by undergraduate students to complete course assignments. Journals indexed in these resources are generally regarded by librarians as essential for serving the basic needs of undergraduates without having to resort to interlibrary loan or document delivery. These journals are therefore frequently protected from cancellation by libraries—an important advantage in the current environment of severe constraints on library acquisition budgets.
Obviously, it is in a journal's interest to be indexed and abstracted in the bibliographic resources used by its potential readers. To give publishers an idea
of the criteria and procedures used by these services to evaluate journals for possible inclusion, we have interviewed staff at some of the leading
indexing/abstracting services and summarize below the essential information about the criteria for
selecting titles.
Index Medicus/MEDLINE:
Index Medicus, with its online counterpart MEDLINE, is widely regarded as the most prestigious index of biomedical journal literature. The rigorous evaluation process employed in selecting journals for inclusion in this publication is seen as a guarantee that journals indexed in Index Medicus
are of high quality and cover topics important to biomedical research or clinical practice. Because many health science journal publishers have expressed to us their interest in being included in Index Medicus, we will describe in some detail the process by which journals are selected for inclusion in this index.
Index Medicus/MEDLINE is published by the National Library of Medicine, a unit of the National Institutes of Health. Evaluation of journals for selection is carried out by the Literature Selection Technical Review Committee, appointed by the NIH. The committee meets three times a year and evaluates approximately 120 journals at each meeting.
The review committee is responsible for evaluating all new biomedical and health journal titles regardless of whether the publishers request the review. Publishers, however, may expedite the review by sending a request that a specific title be considered for indexing. In their evaluation, the reviewers give preference to journals that cover core biomedical subjects and whose intended readership is primarily health professionals. Coverage of emerging fields of knowledge in biomedicine not adequately covered by other literature is a strong plus. Other important evaluation criteria are scientific merit of the articles, editorial policies such as manuscript evaluation and peer review processes, and production quality. The types of articles featured in a journal are also considered, with preference generally given to publications with a strong emphasis on reports of original research.
After review, each journal is given a score from 0 to 5. A score of 4.0 or higher is required for selection. About 21% of the journals reviewed each year are selected for indexing. The review committee will re-evaluate a journal upon request. Titles that receive scores between 2.0 and 3.99 are eligible for re-examination after two years; those with lower scores are eligible after four years.
The committee also reviews the indexing coverage of two to four subjects each year. In these subject reviews, selected American societies in the relevant fields are asked to recommend and rank the journals that they consider important to specialists in these fields. The review committee then uses these rankings to decide on indexed journals that should continue to be indexed, non-indexed titles that should be considered for addition to Index Medicus/MEDLINE, and indexed titles that are not highly ranked and should be considered for deselection.
Additional information about Index Medicus/MEDLINE can be obtained from:
Mrs. Lois Ann Colaianni
Executive Editor, Index Medicus
National Library of Medicine
8600 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, MD 20894
E-mail loisann@lhc.nlm.nih.gov
Cambridge Scientific Abstracts:
CSA publishes 35 separate indexing/abstracting titles covering the areas of life sciences, environmental sciences, aquatic sciences, engineering, and market research. Some of these titles, such as Computer and Information System Abstracts, cover broad areas of research. Others are more narrowly specialized, such as Human Genome Abstracts. In addition to their individual titles, CSA's Internet Database Service provides online access to their databases of abstracts, including back-volume data from the previous five years. A complete list of CSA's publications can be found in their Worldwide Web site:
In deciding whether to index a title, CSA relies largely on the expertise of its in-house editors who have education and experience in each particular subject area. Other factors considered include the recommendations of outside editorial advisors, the impact of a publication on its field, and how competing index/abstract services have treated the title.
Publishers interested in having their publications considered for indexing/abstracting in a relevant CSA publication should send several recent issues to:
Cambridge Scientific Abstracts
Attn.: Angela Hitti, Vice President/Managing Editor
7200 Wisconsin Avenue
Bethesda, MD 20814
Chemical Abstracts:
One of the most extensive of all indexing/abstracting resources, Chemical Abstracts has the goal of providing a comprehensive guide to chemical information worldwide. CA is published by Chemical Abstracts Service, a division of the American Chemical Society. The collection is available in both print and CD-ROM formats. Because of the massive amount of data in this collection, the print version is divided into 80 sections to facilitate searching. More information about Chemical Abstracts can be found in the Worldwide Web site of Chemical Abstracts Service:
Chemical Abstracts is interested in considering any journals that meet the following criteria:
Publishers interested in having their journals considered for inclusion in Chemical Abstracts should send several recent issues to:
Acquisitions Department
Chemical Abstracts Service
2540 Olentangy River Road
Columbus, OH 43210
CAS also suggests publishers of chemical information sources put CAS on their mailing lists so that they can be kept abreast of new sources of chemical information that may be suitable for inclusion in Chemical Abstracts or other CAS information resources.
A sample bibliographic reference from Chemical Abstracts.(Courtesy of Chemical Abstracts Service, a Division of the American Chemical Society.)
Biological Abstracts:
Published by BIOSIS, Biological Abstracts is the life sciences counterpart to Chemical Abstracts. It is a comprehensive bibliographical guide to biological and biomedical information from over 6,800 titles. In being considered for inclusion in BA, journals are evaluated according to the following criteria:
To have a journal considered for inclusion in Biological Abstracts, publishers should send a representative issue to:
Bibliographic Control Department
BIOSIS
2100 Arch Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Institute for Scientific Information:
ISI publishes two indexing series of strong interest to journal publishers: the Citation Index and Current Contents.
The series of citation indexes includes Science Citation Index, Social Science Citation Index, Arts and Humanities Citation Index, and CompuMath Citation Index. There are also five more specialized citation indexes. In all, approximately 7,000 journals are indexed in the citation indexes. All are available in print and CD-ROM versions. The citation indexes are unique in that they indicate for each indexed article the citations to other articles as listed in the indexed article's footnotes. By looking up an author's name, the researcher can find the articles where that author's work is cited. It follows from this that being indexed in the citation indexes can increase the exposure of a journal's articles to researchers in that field.
An important consequence of being indexed in the citation indexes is that a journal is ranked in ISI's Journal Citation Reports. The JCR rates the impact of a journal by rating the frequency with which its articles are cited. The JCR citation ratings are commonly used in library and publishing circles as a measure of a journal's influence on its field of research. A high ranking in the JCR is useful to a journal publisher in gaining and retaining subscriptions and in attracting authors.
In considering a journal for inclusion in the appropriate Citation Index, ISI takes into account the number of citations of each editorial board member, of the authors, and of the journal title. The international diversity of the authors is given a great deal of weight. ISI also favors journals that cover topics of high current interest in their fields of research. Each journal is compared with others in the same field, so that evaluations can vary depending on the subject and the peer journals.
Current Contents is a database of journal tables of contents. It is published in seven editions: Life Sciences; Physical, Chemical, and Earth Sciences; Agriculture, Biology, and Environmental Sciences; Clinical Medicine; Engineering, Computing, and Technology; Social and Behavioral Sciences; and Arts and Humanities. Both print and CD-ROM versions are available.
The criteria for selection to Current Contents are similar to those for the citation indexes, except that the number of citations is not weighted as heavily, and currency of coverage is very important. ISI considers both how quickly a journal covers cutting-edge research and whether the journal regularly meets its publishing schedule.
To consider a journal for inclusion in the citation indexes and in Current Contents, ISI requires a sample copy of the most recent issue plus at least two future issues as soon as they are published. They prefer to be given a complimentary subscription for a whole year. Sample issues should be sent to:
Institute for Scientific Information
Attn: Jeff Dougherty, Publisher Relations
3501 Market Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
More information about the ISI indexes can be found in the ISI Worldwide Web site:
H W Wilson Indexes:
Unlike comprehensive resources like Chemical Abstracts and Biological Abstracts, which strive to be complete guides to authoritative information in their respective disciplines, the indexes of the H W Wilson Company are intended to reference just those publications that are considered to be the most essential journals in the major fields of study. As noted above, they are widely used by undergraduate students for course work. H W Wilson publishes a large number of these indexes; among the most widely used are:
Each index typically covers 200 to 500 titles. Highly specialized journals on very narrow topics are not likely to be selected for inclusion in the Wilson indexes. For journals that fit the scope of these indexes, the basic criteria for evaluation are quality of the publication, availability at libraries, and relevance to the index's subject matter. Journal titles are selected by a committee comprised of librarians and subject specialists, with added input from the American Library Association's Committee on Indexing. Wilson also sends questionnaires periodically to subscribers of the indexes asking for suggestions of titles to include.
We have already noted that inclusion in the widely used indexes of H W Wilson is seen by many librarians as a strong reason for holding a journal. Publishers who believe their journals are appropriate for these indexes and wish their journals to be considered for selection should send a sample issue to:
H W Wilson Company
Attn: Barbara Cheng, Associate Director of Indexing Services
950 University Avenue
Bronx, NY 10452
The CD-ROM format is an ideal medium for indexing and abstracting resources. Its ability to store vast amounts of data in a few disks does away with the need to keep vast collections of printed volumes in library shelves. The medium also allows for quickly executing sophisticated search operations that would be very time-consuming in the print medium. Reference librarians we have interviewed report that once library patrons become familiar with using electronic indexes and abstracts, they develop a strong preference for the electronic version over the paper editions.
The popularity of these electronic sources has created a demand for libraries to license the more heavily used index/abstracts for multiple simultaneous use. As faculty discover the electronic search capability, they quickly see the advantage of accessing the information from their office workstations. Once remote access to the bibliographic resources makes it unnecessary to visit the library, a demand quickly arises for delivery of articles directly to the end user. In the case of articles from journals not owned by the user's library, delivery can take the form of the traditional interlibrary loan, which can take two weeks or more, or the faster commercial document delivery services, such as UnCover and First Search.
Some of the indexing/abstracting services themselves offer delivery of full texts of articles. Chemical Abstracts Service offers delivery of print copies of full articles through its Document Detective Service. The Institute for Scientific Information operates a document delivery service called The Genuine Article, which delivers article copies by mail or fax.
From the end-user's perspective, however, the logical next step following electronic searching of indexes/abstracts is immediate electronic delivery of full texts of articles. To satisfy this anticipated demand, services that offer electronic searching of indexing and abstracting databases are beginning to offer online transmission of full texts of articles to the end user. For example, the microform publisher UMI has launched an online search service called ProQuest Direct that includes online retrieval of full texts of articles. Designed for use in a library setting, ProQuest Direct provides topical searching of a database of bibliographic references and abstracts. Once the list of article titles/authors and abstracts is retrieved, the user can choose to retrieve the full articles; there is a per-article fee charged for each full article retrieved. The Institute for Scientific Information is currently developing an Electronic Library Project with the aim of providing direct online access to indexing/abstracting data as well as full articles from participating journals.
As indexing/abstracting services strive to meet the demand for instant transmission of full articles, it is certain that in the coming years many journal publishers will be called upon to make a decision on whether to license electronic transmission rights for the full contents of their journals. Publishers will need to weigh the advantages of increased access to their journals versus the risk that electronic access will replace regular subscriptions to the print versions. An important consideration will be the pricing of online delivery of full article texts—will the price of retrieving individual articles be high enough so that it becomes uneconomical to replace owning the journal with providing electronic access on demand? When the price of online retrieval is high enough, it is unlikely that libraries would cancel subscriptions to journals that are frequently in demand from their patrons. On the other hand, online access to full articles makes it much easier for a journal to reach readers at libraries that could not subscribe to the print edition because of insufficient readership.
Publishers also need to consider the possible consequences of not having their journal available online when their peer publications can be accessed via online services. In an environment where electronic search and retrieval services are widely available and heavily used by academics and other researchers, it is likely that exclusion from these services would decrease a journal's total readership and scholarly impact in relation to its peers.
We have seen that indexing and abstracting a journal in the appropriate bibliographic resources can increase the number of researchers who access the journal and the frequency with which the journal is cited in the scholarly literature. It also strengthens the journal's chances for acquisition and retention by libraries. It is therefore in a publisher's interest to see to it that its journal is selected for inclusion in the indexing/abstracting publications that cover the journal's subject.
A good first step in finding out which indexing and abstracting services are suitable for your journal is to consult the EBSCO Serials Directory, which is available at most major libraries. In this directory, the entry for each journal indicates where that journal is indexed and abstracted. The directory also lists all the indexing and abstracting services, the disciplines each covers, and the contact address for each. We recommend looking up in the Serials Directory the entries for the major journals that cover subject matters similar to those of your journal and checking where they are indexed and abstracted. If you find that there are indexing/abstracting services that include related journals but not yours, we suggest that you contact these services and arrange to have them consider your own journal for selection.
We also recommend that in all your journal promotions you indicate where the journal is indexed and abstracted. This is important information for potential subscribers, especially librarians. It can also help your journal attract authors. If your journal is newly selected for coverage by a major indexing/abstracting service, it is a good idea to announce this prominently in your promotions.
You should also keep informed on the status of electronic transmission of scientific and technical information. We recommend regularly consulting pub-lications that report current developments in this area, such as ONLINE magazine, which provides news capsules on information sources newly available online. The day is fast approaching when, as a journal publisher, you will need to make decisions about meeting the demand for electronic access to the full contents of your journal. We hope this newsletter helps you both to understand how journals are accessed today and to prepare for the new ways they will be accessed in the future.