Assignment: 2D: Review of Tools that are Pointers to Information.
Reference Source Evaluators: Herbert Putnam (Group 5)
Siridatar Khalsa
Beatrice Ann Laga
Rasheedah L. Najieb
Michelle Pettenato Petrie
Suzanne Lucille Johnson-Robinson
Jenny Virgopia
Reference Source Category: Index
Title: ISI Web of Science.
Author/Editor: This index is maintained by Thomson-Scientific. Editors that have
educational background in their specific area and have experience and education in
information studies perform the journal evaluations. An established network of advisors
extends editors’ knowledge of the literature in the specific fields. (Individual names of
editors were not available online).
Format examined: Online
Other formats available: A print format is available in all three titles, the Science Citation
Index, Social Sciences Citation Index and the Arts and Humanities Citation Index. Each
Index includes three books to access information. They are the Citation Index, the Source
Index and the Permuterm Subject Index. These volumes are updated on a yearly basis.
The three titles are also available on CD-ROM.
Publisher, Place, and date of publication: Thomson-Scientific, 3501 Market Street,
Philadelphia, PA 19104, updated weekly.
URL of publisher: www.scientific.thomson.com
Scope: Indexes are pointers to information. Many periodical Indexes help the user find
articles written by a particular author or by subject heading. This index allows the users
to find the links created when authors cite earlier works by other authors (or even their
own work). This is useful if you want to find the related literature previous to your
article’s publication (going backward). The citation index also allows you to view who
cited your author, thus allowing access to more current literature. Often these citations
will deal with the same topic as in your original article. This can allow a researcher to
access related literature, which can help avoid duplication of research and promote
advancement in a field. Sometimes the cited references will be in opposition to the
original author’s views. This also can allow for the advancement of science and research.
This feature allows researchers that want to either add, make changes or research a totally
different area possible. This online combined index gives users access to current and
retrospective multidisciplinary information to over approximately 8,700 research journals
worldwide. The online format has all three titles, the Science Citation Index, Social
Sciences Citation Index and the Arts and Humanities Citation Index. Science has over
170 subject categories and dates back to 1900. Social Science covers 50 subject
categories and dates back to 1954. Arts and Humanities have over 25 subject categories
and are available back to 1975. It also provides information on Chemistry with the Index
Chemicus (for new compounds) available back to 1985 and Current Chemical Reactions
(for novel Compounds) available since 1991.
Treatment: This index is primarily for research. Those that conduct research such as
professors, scientists, graduate students, psychologists, social workers, artists and
performing artists gain access to highly cited journals, providing the needed information
to further the theories and research in the various disciplines. The extensive bibliographic
standards ensure that all author names, author affiliation names, keywords, abstracts and
cited references are recorded accurately and consistently. The editorial staff ensures
objective selection of material that is most relevant to the scope of the subject categories.
I compared the treatment of controversial entries with Medline. I used the search terms
stem cell research and ethics and got comparable content but there was a difference in
quantity. In web of Science I found 127 entries and narrowed it down to 96 by refining
my results by document type to allow only articles. Medline achieved 20 accurate
listings. Another controversial query was “evolution and intelligent design”. Web of
Science obtained 6 relevant articles they all had zero Times Cited and I had a hard time
expanding my search. Web of Science does have a cross-search function that allows you
to view other results in different databases. I got two additional articles from Medline.
Medline, using the same search terms in basic search gave me 4 relevant articles,
comparable coverage as far as content, just a slight difference in quantity.
Authority: The publisher is Thomson-Scientific, part of the Thomson Corporation.
At a recent ALA conference, Nader Qaimari, director of Thomson Gale PowerSearch and
InfoTrac said, “Given Thomson Scientific’s esteemed reputation for providing the most
comprehensive academic resources, collaborating with them is a great advancement for
InfoTrac.” Retrieved November 19, 2006 from:
http://www.gale.com/press_room/2006_06_22_AcademicOneFile.htm
“The Thomson Corporation, with 2005 revenues of $8.7 billion, is a global leader in
providing integrated information solutions to business and professional customers.”
Retrieved November 19,2006 from:
http://www.dialog.com/pressroom/2006/sla_award_041106.shtml
Arrangement: Searches can be basic, advanced or a cited reference search. The results
are listed alphabetically according to author. The index has various point of entry, author,
title, journal, publication year, subject category, search terms. It is a classified
arrangement but because it is cross-referenced the user can access the information
without be isolated. For example, with a card catalog you might have missed something if
the work you wanted was listed in a different subject heading than the one you looked
under. The online version will cross-reference your information so you will get results.
Relation to Similar Works: I will compare Web of Science and Medline by means of a
citation. When I took a biology class last spring in Comparative Physiology we had to do
a term paper that reported our lab findings and compared the results with the literature.
The professor provided us with three articles and if we wanted an A we had to cited three
additional papers. Our investigation was to measure the physiological effects of the dive
reflex in humans. When we went to find more articles on this topic it was very difficult to
find. I had used Medline with little success and a google search was successful. For the
comparison between the Web of Science and Medline I will use one of the citations given
by the professor. This is the full citation:
Furedy, JJ, Morrison JW, Heslegrave RJ, Arabian JM: Effects of Water Temperature on
Some Nonivasively Measured Components of the Human Dive Reflex: An Experimental
Response-Topography Analysis. Psychophysiology 1983; 20: 5.
In Web of Science I click on Cited Reference Search and put in the information from the
above citation, author, journal and year. This function will provide all the authors that
cited this article and it is not limited to the year of publication. It is anytime the author
was cited in the literature. I got 15 results only 5 relevant. I clicked on one of the relevant
articles and clicked on the Times Cited function located directly below the citation. That
gave me 8 citations that were all relevant. I could go back to any of the original four or
any of the new ones and hit Times Cited and get a substantial amount of relevant
literature. In Medline, I used the basic search and put in the author, title, source and year.
I got one result, the citation and abstract. There were descriptors that gave ideas for new
search terms. There was a hyper link above the citation, advanced options. I clicked on
this and got more choices in authors and subjects to broaden my results. I chose Furedy
again and diving and reflex and I got four excellent articles. In these four new articles
there are some new authors. I could put the new citation into the basic search field and hit
advanced options and chose different author(s) and subject terms. I could obtain many
relevant articles this way. The cited reference search in the web of science makes this
process easier and faster than the above-mentioned process I followed using Medline.
Special features:
 Can go back in time using cited references.
 Can go forward in time using Times Cited
 Links to full text either directly or through SU summit catalog or interlibrary loan.
 Exports citations directly to EndNote, Reference Manager and ProCite.
Web of Science has some new features.
 They have increased the retrospective collection of the Science Citation Index
online as far back as 1900, even further than available in the print format.
 Analyze search results with the new Analyze tool.
 Set up citation alerts. (To inform you via email of new citations).
 See the number of shared references for each related record.
 Use term lists for author names, cited authors, cited work and source title
 Personalization features.
 Access all records retrieved by searches.
Cost: The online cost is complicated. It is so complicated I quoted the following
reviewers: Louise F. Deis (bio), Science Reference Librarian, Princeton University,
Princeton, NJ 08544 lfdeis@princeton.edu and David Goodman (bio) Associate
Professor, Palmer School of Library and Information Science, Long Island University,
Brookville, NY 11548-1326 dgoodman@liu.edu
Web of Science (WoS) is priced by a complicated set of criteria, including the size of the institution
measured in FTE, the membership in a consortium, the total size of the consortium, the portion of the
total file desired, and the number of simultaneous users wanted. The discount structure gives an
advantage to very large consortia. Both separate and combination pricing for each of the three subject
fields are available; because of the special virtues of WoS for interdisciplinary searching, most institutions
try to buy all three subject groups, or at least the science and social science portions. The backfiles are
available as groups of years, and each group must be purchased by a one-time payment. The size of the
payment, potentially several hundred thousand dollars for a complete set, is reduced by a credit for the
product previously owned in another format, such as print or CD. By now, essentially all potential
subscribers will have owned some portion of the database previously. Most larger institutions try to have
the complete backfiles to 1945, even if they cannot buy them all at first.
The publisher was unwilling to supply exact figures, but the complications noted here make it obvious that the prices
for particular institutions cannot readily be specified. As a rough guide, the cost for a large university will be somewhat
above $100,000 a year, and the cost for a small college will be in the low five figures. (The annual cost is in addition to
the one-time backfile purchase fee.) The additional charge per simultaneous user is $500 each, a charge generally
regarded by libraries as a minor but unjustified nuisance considering the total price. Most small universities subscribe
for about 10 simultaneous users; most large ones for two or three times that number. (Retrieved November 19, 2006,
from The Charleston Advisor at http://www.charlestonco.com/comp.cfm?ld_73).
Critical Review: Web of Science is the natural progression from its original print format.
The online version allows the user to simultaneously access the three broad subject areas
and the three indexes all in one easy format. The only plus in the print version is the
Permuterm Subject Index. Someone that doesn’t have an author’s name or journal title
and wants to know what literature is available in a particular subject area uses this index.
It lists subject headings found in the titles. What I like about the print version is you look
up the subject heading and look for a related term that is coupled with the subject
heading. For example, to find information on the effect of exercise on diabetes, you
would look under the subject heading, diabetes, and scroll down till you find the word
exercise and to the right of that word is a list of authors that have used those two terms in
the title of their article. You can easily see all the paired terms and can flip through the
book and look at all the possible combinations that would be relevant to your particular
search. The online has some subject headings to chose from but nothing like the print
version. “In print sources, displays of syndetic structure inform the searcher of the
context in which terminology is to be understood, as well as creating a visual map of the
structure of a discipline. In online sources, however, these visual cues are often not
available.” (Bopp, 2001. p.91).
After locating an author’s name you can locate the full citation in the Source Index. The
print version ends there. It doesn’t tell you where to get the article. The online version
may have a direct links to the full text if they have an agreement with the database that
supplies that particular journal or it would link you to database or catalog that contains
that article. If you are affiliated with the institution or college you can access the
information for free directly from the institution or by interlibrary loan. The New York
Public Library can access it for you for a fee or if the article is in a particular field like
medicine you could go to the library that specializes in that field and you could get it for
free. So the online version has become more than just a listing of citations and abstracts pointers to information – now it can get you there! More and more databases are
combining to create efficient tools to enable the transference of information. For example
at an ALA conference Thomson and Gale spoke of a new service to be offered to mutual
subscribers:
Academic OneFile users will be able to view cited references, citing articles, and
related records from Thomson Scientific’s Web of Science® and will be able to view
current and historical information on a journal's Impact Factor seamlessly from the
Journal Citation Reports® . Further, Thomson Scientific Web of Knowledge® users
will be able to link to the full-text of an article right from Academic OneFile.
(Retrieved online November 19, 2006 at the following URL:
http://www.gale.com/press_room/2006_06_22_AcademicOneFile.htm
I
In conclusion, although the Web of Science would be too expensive for an individual
subscription it is possible for a consortium of institutions to provide this valuable tool,
which is essential for research. Once familiar with the construct of this database it can be
very useful indeed.