Research Material Selection in the pre-web and post-web Environments: An Interdisciplinary Study of Bibliographic Citations in Doctoral Dissertations

摘要

One of the great benefits offered by the web to academic researchers isimproved access to many types of information. Subject-basedbibliographic databases such as Compendex, 1NSPEC, PsychINFO, ABIInform, ERIC, EconLit, PubMed, Biological Abstracts, ProQuest, andSciFinder Scholar are pervasive in the academic environment. Thepopular Google Scholar search engine complements these databasesby indexing all bibliographic-like items that it locates on the openweb. These tools together provide an unparalled overview of thepublications appearing in most disciplines. The actual full textversions of the indexed publications are also increasingly availableon the web. Many of the items such as journal articles and conferencepublications remain subscription-based while other publications suchas patents and newer technical reports are available to all users.