William H. Walters Manhattan University Southern Illinois University
Source
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)
122 (27) e2503051122 July 1, 2025
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2503051122 (2025).
Significance
This study evaluates the bibliographic and full-text coverage of 15 resources that scholars and students use to discover and access the scholarly literature. It compares the coverage of conventional library databases such as Scopus and PubMed with that of free, alternative discovery/access mechanisms such as Google Scholar, OpenAlex, ResearchGate, and Sci-Hub. Notably, many alternative discovery/access mechanisms offer more complete bibliographic and full-text coverage than the conventional databases. Researchers and students should weigh the high-quality interfaces and search capabilities of conventional databases against the superior coverage of the foremost alternative discovery/access mechanisms. Information professionals may want to reconsider the resources they acquire, present, and recommend to users, and database developers may benefit by adopting the best practices of their competitors.
AbstractThis study compares the bibliographic and full-text coverage of 15 conventional and alternative discovery/access mechanisms: two multidisciplinary library databases (Scopus and the Web of Science Core Collection), five single-subject databases, the integrated library search (ILS) mechanism of Manhattan University, a scholarly search engine (Google Scholar), two web-based scholarly databases (Dimensions and OpenAlex), two academic social networks (Academia.edu and ResearchGate), and two pirate sites (Anna’s Archive and Sci-Hub). The analysis is based on known-item searches for 875 target documents in chemistry, materials science, cardiology, public health, economics, education, and psychology. Overall, Google Scholar, OpenAlex, and the ILS are the most comprehensive sources of bibliographic records. Google Scholar’s coverage rate is higher than that of all the Manhattan University databases combined, and Scopus—the most comprehensive multidisciplinary library database—has a lower bibliographic coverage rate than Google Scholar, both of the web-based scholarly databases, one of the two ASNs, and one of the two pirate sites. In terms of full-text coverage, the best multidisciplinary options are the ILS, Google Scholar, and the two pirate sites. Although several of the alternative discovery/access mechanisms are deficient in terms of their user interfaces, search capabilities, and metadata, they nonetheless provide excellent bibliographic and full-text coverage of the scholarly literature. In contrast, many single-subject library databases provide very incomplete coverage of their own subject areas. These findings have implications for scholars and students as well as system-wide implications for the use, development, and evaluation of information resources.
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
