Proceedings of the International Conference on Scientific Information Two Volumes (1959) / Chapter Skim
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Analytical Study of a Method for Literature Search in Abstracting Journals
Analytical Study of a Method for Literature Search in Abstracting Journals
Pages 351-376
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From page 351... ...
TOULOUKIAN ABSTRACT. The mathematical analysis of a method for literature search, using abstracting journals, is presented based on the following model.
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From page 352... ...
Among the various sources of information enumerated above, abstracting journals constitute the most extensive and readily accessible source of literature references. Since many of the major abstracting journals have been issued over a period of several years; they provide ~ rather 1lnialle source for a systematic search of the A brief familiarization with any one of the major abstracting journals will enable one to realize that a brute force, page by page, scanning of the issues of abstracting journals is prohibitive in time and effort.
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From page 353... ...
years will be covered by searching the references listed in the papers located during the abstract journal search of the first a years. Let the yield for this period be P2.
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From page 354... ...
3 Evaluation oftheyiel~pl To establish the value ofp1 it is assumed that the information contained in all the issues of one complete year of the abstracting journal is adequate.2 Let the total number of abstracts contained in a given volume of an abstracting journal be equal or proportional to E'. Let the total number of useful abstracts located 1 Should '~2 be a large number compared to unity, then the ratio R2 approaches R1.
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From page 355... ...
and C) refer to the same subject matter obtained from three different abstracting journals.
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This trend indicates that most of the useful information is found concentrated in a few sections containing altogether a rather small proportion of the total number of abstracts in the volume. Curve B is a straight line showing that the useful information is evenly clistributed among all sections.
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From page 357... ...
i gives useful guidance in the final selection of the specific sections to be searched. Having decided on the optimum value of k, see Fig.
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For purposes of illustration consider that the papers published in 1953, on a specific subject, list a total of 464 references (excluding duplicate references)
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From page 359... ...
The shaded areas of the triangles show the portion of references that are completely new. The point x = 0, representing the commencement of abstracting journal search, gives the number of papers published in the same year as that of the abstractingjournal.
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5. Solid line triangles show overlap of references uncovered in cyclic search procedure based on parameters a, b, c, and d.
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l 5. Adequacy of proposed search method and selection of parameters a and b As it was mentioned before, once the shape of the distribution curve of Fig.
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~ FIGURE 6. Geometric procedure of estimating distribution of useful references obtained from bibliographies of papers uncovered during a years of search in abstractIng 1ourna .
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6 are chosen arbitrarily to simplif3r the analytical summation processes involved by shifting the origins of the distribution curves. In this sense the limits of regions I, II, and III have no physical significance in the time, x, ant!
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The value of x for S = N can fall either in region II or region III of Fig.
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6. Summary of results and operationalprocedure The results of the foregoing analysis are summarized below in a manner which illustrates the procedural steps followed in order to ascertain the appropriate search pattern to be used in an extensive survey of the literature in a given technical field.
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(26) For region III: d = d + [2 - <1-M- ~ (28)
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INITIAL CONSIDERATIONS The type of information of interest is covered, rather extensively, in at least three well-known abstracting journals, namely Chemical Abstracts, ASM Review of Metals Literature, and Metallurgical Abstracts. Suppose Metallurgical Ab
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4. By using Equation (13~:8 EU (Tu)
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From page 369... ...
In other words, a 35~O reduction in search cost is realized. In concluding this illustrative example it may be worth noting that for the case under consideration the abstractingjournal search and bibliographic search periods are taken nearly equal (a/Io = 0.546~.
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370 Function and Effectiver~ess of Abstracts and Ir'1exes AREA 2 APPENDIX A Determination of f~ in terms of search parameters a, b, c and ~ The following analysis refers to Fig.
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and by using Equation (14) , one obtains for `1 _ ~ - a Tabs = (`b d - c)
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APPENDIX B Evaluation of Seas a junction of search parameters a, 6, c, ~ and! time, x Informer to proceed with the calculation of So one must refer to Fig.
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-1 Region III: 0 < i/z < 1 (B4)
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By performing the appropriate transformation one obtains For Region I: i x-c _ = - a i d +c-x For Region II: - = z a i a+d+c-x For Region III: - z a Using these substitutions in Equations (B-8)
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From page 375... ...
Ratio of useful references to the total number of references located in the bibliographies of all papers found during search of abstracting journal for a period of a years. K Proportionality factor.
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