the endangered database species: are the traditional commercial indexing/abstracting & full-text...

The Endangered Database Species:Are the traditional commercial

indexing/abstracting & full-text databases dead?

Peter Jacso

University of Hawaii

UKSG Annual Conference

University of Warwick, 2006

PowerPoint: Judit Tiszai

The Endangered Database Species:Are the traditional commercial

indexing/abstracting & full-text databases dead?

No

Not all of them

Not all of them – yet

Not in all habitats

Jacso

Variations of species – variations in status

Indexing-only db-s

Most abstracting db-s

Some full-text db-s

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near extinction

endangered/threatened

vulnerable

DATABASES

Computer derived

Humancompiled

video

audio

image

textual

numeric

full-text

abstracting

indexing

bibliogr-list

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Phylogenetic tree

Intrinsic reasons for endangered/threatened/vulnerable status

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Stagnation British Education Index (on Dialog)

Deflation Mental Health Abstracts (MHA)

Staleness GeoArchive

Sloppy production MHA, Information Science Abstracts (ISA)

Journal base blight MHA, ISA

Flab vs muscle SportDiscus (before acquisition by Ebsco)

Self-destruction e-psyche

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External reasons for endangered/threatened/vulnerable status

Open Access

100 millions of OA indexing records

10 millions of OA abstract records

Millions of free OA full-text documents Triple whammy– commercial competitors +

government + smartest individuals Much enhanced competitive content Innovative & synergic hosting platform Appealing Interface

Jacso

For the gory details see the following

e-psyche Online 28(2)  March/April,  2004, p. 54-58.e-psyche  GaleNet January, 2004e-psyche e-XTRA January, 2004

Information Science Abstracts Database 20(1) February/March, 1997, p. 84-87. Update on the Currency of ISA  e-XTRA June, 2000Database Source Coverage: Myth and Reality  e-XTRA December, 2000

Cheers and Jeers for 2003 e-XTRA December, 2003Endangered Database Species  e-XTRA December, 2000A look at the endangered species of the database world.  Information World Review No.164

December, 2000, p. 72-73.

Mental Health Abstracts Online 27(5)  Sep/Oct,  2003, p. 53-55.

SportDiscus   GaleNet Nov, 2004                 SportDiscus Online 28(6)  Nov/Dec,  2004, p. 51-54.

Some Pans of the Past Online 30(1)  Jan/Feb,  2006, p. 58-60.Jacso

too slow growth

too small body size

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The fate of two databases (updated March 15, 2006)

0

10,000

20,000

30,000

40,000

50,000

60,000

70,000

80,000

90,000

100,00019

66

1968

1970

1972

1974

1976

1978

1980

1982

1984

1986

1988

1990

1992

1994

1996

1998

2000

2002

2004

2006

PsycINFO

MHA

JacsoDeflation

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Self-delusion

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Self-delusion

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Illusions & Delusions

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e-psyche vs Psycinfo on EBSCO

JacsoCutting corners

Self Destruction

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Only journal articles as cited referencesOnly back to 1970Maximum 10

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Champagne promises

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From fake

rigor...

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...to wishful thinking...

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...to delusionWho are you fooling?

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Reality check

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How many duplicates, triplicates, quadruplicates? ...

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Poor thesaurus

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Fatal obesity

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In spite of rigorous quality control...

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Rigor mortis sets in

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Staleness

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Size does matter

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Phylogenetic-tree (NON-scientific) ©

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Publishersdirectly give away millions of abstracts

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Digital Faciliatorsaggregate

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Sumo wrestlers get in the ring

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Goverment versionshave smarter software + many full-text for free

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From the minimalist

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To the maximalist

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and in between

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Ultra skeletal record on Dialog

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“Same” record on Ebsco

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Useful links

No abstract

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puny link

Why teasing with FindIt, when it could be linked directly?

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Link it is, but not hot

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that’s good

Hot-linking, distractive Find It Button

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Incorporated JMLA in PDF FT, no guessing game

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Cited ref count links to Cited ref list

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So happy to see also the CITEDNESS Count of some of the CITED items, but …..

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Obvious links missed

The cited JMLA article IS in the LISTA database with PDF FT!

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The cited BMLA article biblio details are in LISTA but not the PDF FT

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No citedness count, no list of cited references

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let’s view the FT at

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list of cited refs – all cold

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Richly enhanced cited refs for the haves and have-nots, but …

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… Why the first ref to Serials is linkless? The second one is rewarding

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MetaPress-hosted article

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No citedness score but links to find out – within ScienceDirect and outside

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Cited by within ScienceDirect

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and cited in Scopus

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Modest information about citedness in facilitator: MetaPress

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pre-Emerald volume

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Far the best digital facilitator – HWP

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and of course Google Scholar , but...

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...Inflated hit and citation counts + phantom links

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Google Scholar  GaleNet Dec, 2004.Google Scholar (Redux) GaleNet June, 2005. Google Scholar: the Pros and the Cons.  Online Information Review 29(2) 2005, p. 208-214. As We May Search - Comparison of Major Features of the Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar Citation-based and Citation-enhanced Databases.  Current Science  89(9), 2005, p. 1537-1547. Google Scholar and The Scientist   e-XTRA Oct, 2005.

+ coming soon

Dubious Hit Counts and Cuckoo's Eggs. Online Information Review 30(2) 2006 (in press).Deflated, Inflated and Phantom Citation Counts. Online Information Review 30(3) 2006 (in press).

Phylogenetic-tree (NON-scientific) ©

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"Survival of the fittest"

1. "Survival of the fittest" is a poor way to think about evolution. Darwin himself did not use the phrase in the first edition of Origin of Species. What Darwin said is that heritable variations lead to differential reproductive success. This is not circular or tautologous. It is a prediction that can be, and has been, experimentally verified (Weiner 1994).

Jacso