Bibliometric databases

The most important databases for bibliometric analyses are:

Web of Science (WoS)

This database is part of Thomson Reuter′s Web of Knowledge and can be used both as a regular bibliographic database or as a citation database for bibliometric analyses. It has been the standard database for citation analysis since the 1960s.

Web of Science consists of a number of databases which can be searched individually or collectively:

Science Citation Index Expanded (1945-)

Social Science Citation Index (1956-)

Arts & Humanities Citation Index (1975-)

Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Science (1990-)

Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Social Sciences & Humanities (1990-)

Web of Science is updated every week and has excellent coverage of the natural sciences and medicine. It has good coverage of technology, mathematics and economics, but poor coverage of the social sciences and arts.

The number of peer-reviewed journals indexed by Web of Science is steadily increasing and had reached around 11,000 in 2010.

Journal Citation Reports (JCR)

This is another part of Thomson Reuter′s Web of Knowledge. JCR is a tool for ranking journals within 255 subject areas. It features the journal Impact Factor, the best known method for judging the impact of a journal based on the number of citations its articles receive. It′s updated annually.

Essential Science Indicators (ESI)

ESI is also a Web of Knowledge tool. It can be used to generate ranking lists of researchers, institutions, countries and journals within various disciplines. It′s updated every two months.

Scopus

Scopus is a relative newcomer and rival to Web of Science and is produced by Elsevier. Like WoS it′s both a reference and citation database with coverage across all subjects. It contains material from as far back as 1823, but has complete functionality for citation analysis only from 1996. It indexes 16,000 journals. It′s updated daily.

 Google Scholar

Google Scholar retrieves peer-reviewed articles, theses, reports and other academic publications available on the internet. It′s updated continually and can be searched in any language.