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 writing, written, drawing, drawn, presented, or memorialized representation of thought, often the manifestation of nonfiction, non-fictional, as well as fictional, content. The word originates from the Latin ', which denotes ...
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.
The product is often an abstracts journal or a
bibliographic index, which may be a subject bibliography or a
bibliographic database
A bibliographic database is a database of bibliographic records. This is an organised online collection of references to published written works like academic journal, journal and newspaper articles, conference proceedings, reports, government an ...
.
Guidelines for indexing and abstracting, including the evaluation of such services, are given in the literature of
library and information science.
[Lancaster, F. W. (1991/1998/2003). ''Indexing and abstracting in theory and practice''. London: Library Association. (1st ed. 1991; 2nd ed. 1998; 3rd. ed. 2003).]
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 ''bibliograph ...
*
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 H ...
*
Guide to information sources
A Guide to information sources (or a bibliographic guide, a literature guide, a guide to reference materials, a subject gateway, etc.) is a kind of metabibliography. Ideally it is not just a listing of bibliographies, reference works and other so ...
*
List of academic databases and search engines
This page contains a representative list of major databases and search engines useful in an academic setting for finding and accessing articles in academic journals, institutional repository, institutional repositories, archives, or other collecti ...
*
Subject indexing
Subject indexing is the act of describing or classifying a document
A document is a writing, written, drawing, drawn, presented, or memorialized representation of thought, often the manifestation of nonfiction, non-fictional, as well as ...
References
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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): https://www.indexers.org.uk/
Bibliographic databases and indexes