Dear EBL Colleagues:
Pam had done such an excellent job in explaining the indexing situation
by the time I caught up with this email trail I thought it redundant to
add anything. Then, I recalled, much later, some older evidence (since
that's what we are all about--the "evidence" that is, not the "old")
that might be useful for members since I do not believe it has been
replicated more recently:
Bull Med Libr Assoc. 1993 Oct;81(4):364-70.
Accuracy of indexing coverage information as reported by serials
sources.
Eldredge JD.
Medical Center Library, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
87131-5686.
This article reports on the accuracy of indexing service coverage
information
listed in three serials sources: Ulrich's International Periodicals
Directory,
SERLINE, and The Serials Directory. The titles studied were randomly
selected
journals that began publication in either 1981 or 1986. Aggregate
results reveal
that these serials sources perform at 92%, 97%, and 95% levels of
accuracy
respectively. When the results are analyzed by specific indexing
services by
year, the performance scores ranged from 80% to 100%. All three serials
sources
tend to underreport index coverage. The author advances five
recommendations for
improving index coverage accuracy and four specific proposals for
future
research. The results suggest that, for the immediate future,
librarians should
treat index coverage information reported in these three serials
sources with
some skepticism.
Available free from:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=8251971
Hope to see some of you at MLA in a few weeks. There are several EBL
sessions on the program.
Jonathan
Jonathan Eldredge, MLS, PhD, AHIP
Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center
Health Sciences Center
The University of New Mexico
MSC09 5100
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001
505/272-0654 (direct)
505/272-5350 (fax)
505/540-2264 (pager)
[log in to unmask]
>>> "Sieving, Pamela (NIH/OD/ORS)" <[log in to unmask]> 4/20/2004
11:16:52 AM >>>
If you can find a copy of the print list, and scan the titles for the
little
's', it's clear fairly quickly that the choice is to index articles
relevant
to Medline's biomedical focus, and not all the rest. PubMed does it
differently, of course, so titles such as this appear:
Dissolution of trace metals from lava ash: influence on
the
composition of rainwater in the Mount Etna volcanic area.
I followed up with a call to NLM, since I was puzzled as to how one
might
quickly determine the status of a particular journal, especially if one
were
not in a library and didn't have access to the print. I expected to
find
notes in the journals database in PubMed, but it's not there, and
browing
the NLM list of publications didn't get me anything else obvious.
It turns out that the MARC record linked in LocatorPlus, NLM's online
catalog, has this information. The 510 field has subfields: 0 for
'unknown', 1 for cover to cover, and 2 for selective indexing.
I don't think that's very obvious, and as a reference librarian who
seldom
uses MARC directly, and last learned it many years ago, I admit I
never
would have thought to check there.
Pam
-----Original Message-----
From: Fiona McLean [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2004 11:57 AM
To: Sieving, Pamela (NIH/OD/ORS);
[log in to unmask]
Subject: RE: Selective indexing on Medline?
NLM has several categories. The only one I can remember is 'depth
rush'
which means cover-to-cover indexing and quickly. If anyone has more
queries or needs more depth, let me know as the person who
co-ordinates
the indexing for the NLM is an ex-colleague. I will certainly ask him
if
research articles are always indexed, as they are likely to be the
ones
most relevant to us and our users.
Purely personally:
It makes some sense as an approach if there are limited indexing
resources, I suppose. A letter in the Lancet is clearly likely to be
relevant to many searchers, but would a letter in a more obscure
general
science journal also be relevant to as many? Ideally, NLM would have
vast indexing resourcese and do the lot, of course...
Fiona
-----Original Message-----
From: Sieving, Pamela (NIH/OD/ORS) [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 20 April 2004 17:19
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Selective indexing on Medline?
Every index has its own policies. Medline is quite explicit about
cover-to-cover or selective indexing in "List of Serials for Online
Users"
in print; I haven't found a source for this information online, and it
does
not seem to be included in the journal browser in PubMed.
I am curious, John, as to the source of your assumption about extent
of
indexing in databases. My career as a librarian extends back into the
early
70s; both print and electronic versions of indexes have always varied.
Some
do routinely provide cover to cover indexing, others are selective; to
the
best of my knowledge, it's important to determine policies and
coverage
in
order to have confidence in your retrieval. This is exactly the same
as
knowing what years are covered, what journals are indexed, what fields
of a
database record are searchable, etc.
I hope this is of use.
Pam Sieving
Pamela C. Sieving, MA, MS
Biomedical Librarian/Informationist
National Institutes of Health Library
10 Center Drive room 1L09G
Bethesda, Maryland USA 20892-1150
301 451-5862 voice 301 402-0254 fax
[log in to unmask]
nihlibrary.nih.gov
________________________________
Amazing Research. Amazing Help.
-----Original Message-----
From: andrew booth [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2004 12:00 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: FW: Selective indexing on Medline?
As this is a chapter written by Jonathan Eldredge perhaps Jonathan
would
like to expand for the benefit of this list and then I will forward a
reply
on to lis-medical (a UK medical list).
Background note: Jonathan was looking specifically at selective
coverage
of
LIS journals as an impediment to Evidence Based Librarianship.
Regards
ANdrew
Andrew Booth
Senior Lecturer in Evidence Based Healthcare Information & Director of
Information Resources School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR)
University of Sheffield
Tel: 0114 222 0705 Fax: 0114 272 4095
Email: [log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: UK medical/ health care library community / information workers
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Addison John (RW6)
PAHNT
Sent: 20 April 2004 16:29
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Selective indexing on Medline?
Having just won* a copy of Andrew Booth et al's 'Evidence-based
practice
for
information professionals' and started to read it I was alarmed to
discover
in chapter 4 that both PubMed and CINAHL only index some (and not the
same
ones) of the articles that appear in various health information
journals. I
appear t have been labouring under the misapprehension that once a
journal
was accepted as being worthy of inclusion in a database that
thereafter
all
its contents were indexed, not merely selected items. How common is
this
selective indexing, and on wht criteria are certain papers chosen, and
others excluded?
* second prize in a beauty contest as Mr Waddington might put it.
(Reduced
entry. Two)
John Addison
Librarian
Education Centre Library
Royal Oldham Hospital
Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust
Rochdale Rd
Oldham
OL1 2JH
Tel 0161 627 8463
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