Sociological Abstracts vs. SocINDEX for Graduate Students in Sociology: Comprehensive Enough to Satisfy?

Authors

David C. Tyler, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Jeanne Cross, University of North Carolina WilmingtonFollow
Erica DeFrain, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

ORCID IDs

Erica DeFrain

David C. Tyler

Date of this Version

Winter 3-7-2017

Abstract

In 2005, EBSCO introduced a comprehensive database for sociology that could be a competitor for Sociological Abstracts, SocINDEX/SocINDEX with Full Text. Library science quickly produced a product review, a few general comparative analyses of the two, and a few comparative analyses of the databases’ utility for particular populations of researchers/students. The authors hope to add to this literature with an analysis of the databases’ utility for graduate students in sociology completing their theses and dissertations. The citation checking variation of the checklist method was employed for four random samples of cited items, and the authors’ sampling frame was theses and dissertations accepted at Southern Illinois University Carbondale and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln during the 2000-2010 interval. The authors found that neither database provided particularly good coverage of the literature cited, that SocINDEX provided superior coverage of cited peer-reviewed journal articles, that neither database provided impressive coverage of other sorts of literature, and that SocINDEX’s broader approach to indexing subjects of interest to sociologists could be beneficial to graduate students in sociology.