Comparison of the Contributions of CAPLUS and MEDLINE to the Performance of SciFinder in Retrieving the Drug Literature.

Authors

  • Svetla Baykoucheva

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29173/istl1522

Abstract

SciFinder (SF) is a platform that provides access to two large databases, the Chemical Abstracts database (CAPLUS) and MEDLINE. This article analyzes and compares the individual and combined contributions of these two databases to the performance of SF in retrieving the drug literature. Test searches in which the names of two individual drugs (lisinopril and lovastatin) and a group of drugs (SSRI antidepressants) were used as keywords retrieved document sets that were analyzed for total and annual literature output, document types, journal coverage, and language of publication. While the total literature output from CAPLUS was larger than the output from MEDLINE (which was attributed to the presence of patents), MEDLINE performed significantly better than CAPLUS in retrieving the non-patent literature. The overlap of documents between CAPLUS and MEDLINE was found to be only 20-24%, depending on the name of the drug used to perform the searches. This article analyzes the strengths and the weaknesses of CAPLUS and MEDLINE and shows how these two databases, when searched together in SF, complement each other in covering the drug literature. In addition to the extended coverage of the literature, SF provides sophisticated (but easy-to-use) refining and analytical tools not available on some other platforms.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Anders, M.E. and Evans, D.P. 2010. Comparison of PubMed and Google Scholar literature searches. Respiratory Care 55(5):578-83.

Bandyopadhyay, Aditi. 2010. Examining Biological Abstracts on two platforms: what do end users need to know? Science & Technology Libraries 29(1):34-52.

Baykoucheva, Svetla. 2007. A new era in chemical information: PubChem, DiscoveryGate, and Chemistry Central. Online 31(5):16-20.

Baykoucheva, Svetla. 2008. Finding drug information in integrated chemistry and life sciences databases: PubChem and DiscoveryGate. Abstracts of Papers, 236th ACS National Meeting, Philadelphia, PA, United States, August 17-21, 2008: CINF-041.

Baykoucheva, Svetla. 2010. Selecting a database for drug literature retrieval: a comparison of MEDLINE, Scopus, and Web of Science. Science & Technology Libraries 29:276-288.

Bianchi, Stephanie. 2002. PubMed: for more than medicine this is one of the world's greatest databases. Issues in Science & Technology Librarianship 34 (Spring). [Internet]. [Cited July 11, 2011]. Available from: http://www.istl.org/02-spring/databases3.html

Bolek, Ann D. 2000. SciFinder Scholar. Issues in Science & Technology Librarianship 28 (Fall). [Internet]. [Cited July 11, 2011]. Available from http://www.istl.org/00-fall/databases.html.

Brown, Cecelia. 2003. The changing face of scientific discourse: analysis of genomic and proteomic database usage and acceptance. Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology 54(10):926-938.

Falagas, M.E., Pitsouni, E.I., Malietzis, G.A., and Pappas, G. 2008. Comparison of PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar: strengths and weaknesses. Faseb Journal 22(2):338-342.

Haldeman, Margaret, Vieira, Barbara, Winer, Fred, and Knutsen, Lars J.S. 2005. Exploration tools for drug discovery and beyond: applying SciFinder to interdisciplinary research. Current Drug Discovery Technologies 2(2):69-74.

Hightower, Christy and Caldwell, Christy. 2010. Shifting sands: science researchers on Google Scholar, Web of Science, and PubMed, with implications for library collections budgets. Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship. [Internet]. [Cited July 11, 2011]. Available from: http://www.istl.org/10-fall/refereed3.html

Levine-Clark, Michael, and Kraus, Joseph. 2007. Finding chemistry information using Google Scholar: a comparison with Chemical Abstracts Service. Science & Technology Libraries 27(4):3-17.

Oprea, Tudor I. and Tropsha, Alexander. 2006. Target, chemical and bioactivity databases - integration is key. Drug Discovery Today: Technologies 3 (4):357-365.

Ridley, Damon D. 2009. Information Retrieval: SciFinder. 2nd ed. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Shultz, Mary. 2007. Comparing test searches in PubMed and Google Scholar. Journal of the Medical Library Association 95(4):442-445.

Suarez-Almazor, Maria E., Belseck, Elaine, Homik, Joanne, Dorgan, Marlene, and Ramos-Remus, Cesar. 2000. Identifying clinical trials in the medical literature with electronic databases: MEDLINE alone is not enough. Controlled Clinical Trials 21 (5):476-487.

Weiner, Sharon A. 2009. Tale of two databases: the history of federally funded information systems for education and medicine. Government Information Quarterly 26 (3):450-8.

Downloads

Published

2011-09-01

How to Cite

Baykoucheva, S. (2011). Comparison of the Contributions of CAPLUS and MEDLINE to the Performance of SciFinder in Retrieving the Drug Literature. Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, (66). https://doi.org/10.29173/istl1522

Issue

Section

Refereed Articles
Share |