Bibliographic index coverage of a multidisciplinary field

  • Authors:

  • William H. Walters;Esther I. Wilder

  • Affiliations:

  • Owen D. Young Library, St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY;Department of Sociology and Social Work, Lehman College, The City University of New York, Bronx, NY and The Graduate Center, The City University of New York, New York, NY

  • Venue:
  • Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
  • Year:
  • 2003

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Abstract

This study examines the literature of a multidisciplinary field, later-life migration, and evaluates the effectiveness of 12 bibliographic databases in indexing that literature. Five journals--three in social gerontology, one in rural sociology, and one in regional science--account for 40% of the papers published in this area. The disciplines that publish the most work on later-life migration are not necessarily those that provide the best index coverage, however. Moreover, four multidisciplinary databases each provide better index coverage than any single-subject index. The relatively low degree of overlap among the 12 databases suggests that scholars working on topics such as later-life migration must continue to rely on a wide range of bibliographic tools, both disciplinary and multidisciplinary.