An abstracting service is a service that provides
abstracts of publications, often on a subject or group of related subjects, usually on a subscription basis. An indexing service is a service that assigns descriptors and other kinds of access points to
document
A document is a written, drawn, presented, or memorialized representation of thought, often the manifestation of non-fictional, as well as fictional, content. The word originates from the Latin ''Documentum'', which denotes a "teaching" o ...
s. The word indexing service is today mostly used for computer programs, but may also cover services providing
back-of-the-book indexes,
journal indexes, and related kinds of
indexes. An indexing and abstracting service is a service that provides shortening or summarizing of documents and assigning of descriptors for referencing documents.
[Klempner, Irving M. (1968). ''Diffusion of abstracting and indexing services for government-sponsored research''. Metuchen, N.J. Scarecrow Press.]
The product is often an abstracts journal or a
bibliographic index
A bibliographic index is a bibliography intended to help find a publication. Citations are usually listed by author and subject in separate sections, or in a single alphabetical sequence under a system of authorized headings collectively known as ...
, which may be a subject bibliography or a
bibliographic database
A bibliographic database is a database of bibliographic records, an organized digital collection of references to published literature, including journal and newspaper articles, conference proceedings, reports, government and legal publications, ...
See also
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Bibliography
Bibliography (from and ), as a discipline, is traditionally the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology (from ). English author and bibliographer John Carter describes ''bibliography ...
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Citation index
A citation index is a kind of bibliographic index, an index of citations between publications, allowing the user to easily establish which later documents cite which earlier documents. A form of citation index is first found in 12th-century Hebre ...
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Guide to information sources
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List of academic databases and search engines
This article contains a representative list of notable databases and search engines useful in an academic setting for finding and accessing articles in academic journals, institutional repositories, archives, or other collections of scientific and ...
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Subject indexing
References
{{Reflist
External links
*American Society of Indexers: https://web.archive.org/web/20111128132758/http://www.asindexing.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=1
*Society of Indexers (UK): http://www.indexers.org.uk/
Bibliographic databases and indexes