A study of publication time of chemical databases

Abstract

For two bibliographic databases on chemistry, Analytical Abstracts (AA) and Chemical Abstracts (CA) the time needed for an article of a core journal to input, i.e., how long the time delay of these databases (timeliness) is studied. The time period between the date of publication of a printed journal and the date when an article in the journal is added to the database was determined, for each article in 10 selected journals, and for 4 volume years (AA) and for 3 volume years (CA). The results obtained are shown and evaluated in graphicand tabular forms. It was found that the Boards of Editors of both databases stríve for improving timeliness of their respec-tive database. The best data, for both databases, were obtained for 1995. Afterwards, there was a slight delay in terms of publication date which suggests that the optimum publication timeliness values for these databases might be in 1999 and 2000.