SCOPUS for Science and Medicine Gabriella Netting Nicola Mawer Nicola Mawer January 2007
Wiser Science this term: Web of Science: Citation searching Scopus Medline for Medicine Inspec for Physics/Engineering CAB abstracts for Environmental Research Compendex for Engineering Biological Abstracts for Life sciences Research SciFinder Scholar for Chemistry and Material Science Mondays, 12:30 pm OUCS
What will these sessions cover? Database content Database content Available platforms Available platforms Searching Searching Locating full text Locating full text Setting up alerts Setting up alerts Saving references Saving references Organising references through RefWorks Organising references through RefWorks
Scopus: types of publications Open access journals Trade publications Journals Conferences Patents million records from 4 Patent Offices Book series Web resources Many links to full text
Subject Coverage Life Sciences 3,400 titles Health Sciences5,300 titles Physical Sciences 5,500 titles Social Sciences 2,800 titles
Content Publisher-submitted records Medline records Content from other Elsevier databases*: Embase 1970-Compendex Geobase Content coverage etc. at
Functionality Searching Limits Sorting results Citation searching Search History Alerts Output
Strengths User friendly, intuitive Good for free-text, keyword searching Good 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 Regular updates/improvements Good help pages and online support
Weaknesses No controlled vocabulary/ subject heading searching Citation searching more comprehensive in Web of Knowledge Clinical queries - use Medline / PubMed
Other features Also searches the web via SCIRUS, Elsevier’s science search engine
Why use Scopus? Scholarly, interdisciplinary content Weekly or daily updates Complex searching and refining results Searches databases and the web simultaneously Search history can be viewed Current awareness alerts can be set up Easy to set up bibliography of results
Sample search: Climate change and fisheries
Features for demonstration Searching Limits Web results Database results Sorting Link to article (TOUR) Save search as Alert Citations Output
Topics you can try… What are the ethical implications of face transplants? How does solar power help with the problem of global warming? How is airplane safety affected by metal fatigue?
Next week’s session Medline for Medicine