Because of the Graduate Center’s budget constraints, the library can no longer sustain a subscription to Elsevier’s Scopus database. Librarians apply cost and use statistics (and other factors) to deliberations about electronic resource renewals and cancellations. We also – to the best of our ability – avoid duplication of resources.

“Web” by Leo Reynolds is licensed under CC BY NC SA 2.0

While we understand that Elsevier’s Scopus is a well-liked and useful resource, it is very similar to the Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science. Both databases are expensive, but Scopus is considerably more so. Therefore it is Scopus we must cancel, with the assurance that Web of Science is an excellent alternative for Scopus users. Many research libraries provide access to only one, not both, of these databases. The GC Library has been fortunate to offer both in recent years, but in the current fiscal environment we are no longer able to do so.

Keep a lookout for workshops on Web of Science in the spring! In the meantime, to ease your transition, here are Web of Science’s most useful and popular features:

• Author search and disambiguation
• Search by affiliation, funding agency, chemical structure, and more
• Cited references (items cited by a given article)
• Times cited (# of times an article has been cited by later articles)
• Citation reports for authors
• Saved searches, search alerts, and citation alerts
• Journal impact factors
• Includes numerous bibliographic indexes, including Science Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index information all the way back to 1900!

Contact your subject librarian for more information about the similarities and differences between the two databases and for help getting started with Web of Science.

*UPDATE* 1/12/2017:

Here are some useful links for Web of Science online training and support, to tide you over until our next workshop!

Recorded Training and Materials: http://wokinfo.com/training_support/training/web-of-science/

Schedule for Live Training Sessions (online): http://wokinfo.com/training_support/training/