Paula Hane, Elsevier Announces Scopus Service, Information Today, March 15, 2004. Excerpt: "After two years of planning, development, and initial testing by a select group of about 20 university libraries, Elsevier has finally made an official announcement of the first fully functioning version of Scopus, its highly anticipated, full-text linking, abstracting and indexing database. The company is now providing access to another 30 academic libraries for final testing and user trials, will add more libraries over the next 6 months, and expects to have the commercial release available by Q4 2004. Scopus is designed to be an all science, comprehensive access point for a library, with coverage of 13,000 titles from over 4,000 STM publishers, plus coverage of over 100 open access journals by the summer. Scopus also simultaneously searches the scientific Web using Elsevier’s science-only Internet search engine, Scirus. The company aimed to make the Scopus service 'as easy to use as Google,' with fewer clicks to the full text than any service available....Scopus draws from all major databases, including EMBASE, Compendex, PsycINFO, MEDLINE, etc, as well as from individual publishers....Scopus will also provide a complete service package that includes local customer support, customer-specific usage reports that will be COUNTER compliant, as well as on- and off-site training. Scopus is OpenURL compliant....Cited reference searching logically raises the question of competing with Thomson ISI’s Web of Science. While they will surely be seen as rival services, Elsevier representatives stated that Scopus was not designed to go head-to-head with ISI’s products, and pointed out the different functionality and the additional content in Scopus—13,000 titles versus 8,500 titles in Web of Science (which includes social science and humanities titles in the 8,500). However, Web of Science has back files to 1945." (PS: Also see the Elsevier press release and the Scopus site itself. The official launch will take place later this year.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 3/15/2004 09:33:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
