Analysis of Retrieval Performance in Four Cross-Disciplinary Databases: Article1st, Faxon Finder, UnCover, and a Locally Mounted Database
Scott Stebelman · College & Research Libraries · 1994
As an increasing number of cross-disciplinary databases become accessible over the Internet, librarians are presented with the dilemma of which to choose to support patron research.Several factors, such as cost, retrospective coverage, and document delivery, are usually considered in making a decision.However, one key factor-citation retrieval performance-is often overlooked because comparative data have been unavailable.A study of four cross-disciplinary databases was undertaken to provide those data.In addition to citation frequency distribution, two other variables were examined: percentage of unique periodicals cited per search and relevancy of citations to stated search topic.An analysis of the data is provided, with its implication for database selection.