Information Science & Technology Abstracts Bartoletti 1

Information Science & Technology Abstracts

Robin Bartoletti

LS 5013-22

Texas Women’s University

August 2, 2010
Information Science & Technology Abstracts Bartoletti 2

ISTA Database General Information Part One

Information Science & Technology Abstracts has gone though a metamorphosis of sorts.

Originally, this database was titled Information Science Abstracts (ISA). The database was sold

to EBSCO in 2003 and was renamed Information Science & Technology Abstracts (ISTA). At

this time, though ISTA is still listed separately in EBSCOhost some of its full text journals,

proceedings, books and magaziness are available through Library, Information Science &

Technology Abstracts (LISTA). ISTA includes abstracts and citations coverage of information

science and when combined with LISTA, the coverage significantly increases the in the area of

library science. LISTA and ISTA combined indexes journal articles from more than 600

publications plus books, research reports, and conference proceedings. Subject coverage

includes librarianship, classification, cataloging, bibliometrics, online information retrieval,

information management, search engines, information sources, the information industry,

scholarly communication, and electronic publishing. With coverage extending back to 1966, it is

the oldest continuously produced database covering the field of information science. The

following general information is specific to the ISTA database.

Name Information Science & Technology Abstracts (ISTA) Database

URL ISTA is available via EBSCOhost at

http://www.ebscohost.com/default.php, and formerly at

http://www.infotoday.com/. ISTA is available on the web outside

of subscriber institutions via EBSCO Connection at

http://connection.ebscohost.com/content/ with log in affiliated with

a library, university, school in the left-hand margin.

Vendor The current vendor is EBSCO publishing. Information Today, Inc.

Information Science & Technology Abstracts Bartoletti 3

(ITI) sold Information Science Abstracts (ISSN: 0020-0239, $789

for 1 year in 2003) to EBSCO Publishing in 2003. The journal was

renamed Information Science & Technology Abstracts (ISTA).

Size ISTA indexes worldwide library and information science records

from more than 650 publications including journals, books,

research reports, and conference proceedings, with ongoing

comprehensive coverage of important periodicals in this field. The

database has been also includes cover-to-cover indexing and

abstracts for 80 core information science and technology titles. It

is the oldest continuously produced database covering the field of

information science. ISTA has about 170,400 records,

Types of DB Full Text is available though links to Library, Information Science

& Technology Abstracts (a free publically available database found

at http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/ )

Citations? Yes

Abstracts? Yes

Coverage dates Indexing: 1964-

Frequency of Updates: Bi-monthly; Some full-text publications

may have the most current 3-12 months in abstract only, due to

publisher restrictions.

Intended audience The audience for this database is English reading information

scientists and those in the related technologies such as GeoScience,

Computer Applications in Medical Care, Chemical Information,

Information Science & Technology Abstracts Bartoletti 4

acquisition, cataloging and technical services. There are two non-

English journals indexed.

Coverage topics include:

Bibliometrics

Cataloging

Classification

Electronic Publishing

Information Management

Online Information Retrieval

Printed and Electronic Information Sources

Search Engines

Scholarly Communication

The Information Industry

Special contents/features Full-text and full-page versions, microfilm, microfiche, article and

issue photocopies; text with graphics, and page image PDF are all

available on a pay-per-view basis. Saving of PDF files is also

allowed through the EBSCO interface. Within EBSCO, you may

create a personalized folder for ISTA to save results and set up

regular content e-mail alerts. Individual results will display

Information Science & Technology Abstracts Bartoletti 5

citations in most commonly used styles as selected by the user.

You can follow EBSCO on Twitter,

(http://twitter.com/EBSCOPublishing ) but not ISTA specifically.

Why/when do you use This database is most useful for locating citations and full text

this DB? conference proceedings, academic journals, magazines in

information sciences and related sub-fields.

What are the advantages As a Web searcher, it is often very challenging to find quality

of using this DB instead content. There is often less-than-credible information on the

of Google or another general web. ISTA has depth of coverage of that seems to be good

general Web search or very good in sample searches. Databases found in EBSCO such

engine? as ISTA follow a Publishing Peer Review Policy that is lacking in

Google or other web search engines. EBSCO seems to be placing

them as the opposite extreme of Google, which often contains

citations when none exist. This database would often bridge the gap

between a search of Google and access to quality content by

infusing brief citation-only records and then linking to full records

via LISTA
Information Science & Technology Abstracts Bartoletti 6

ISTA Indexing Language Part Two

The objective of an information retrieval database is to retrieve all the relevant

documents in response to a user search. In controlled representation language exhaustivity is the

average number of preferred terms (subject headings) selected from a controlled list in the

bibliographic record representing the item. Specificity is the degree to which the meaning of a

subject heading matches in breadth the major subjects of the item. For example, although the

Library of Congress subject heading "digital content" applies to a resource about creating digital

content of all kinds, the heading "digital media" describes the content more specifically

(Information Science & Technology Absctracts Thesaurus, 2009).

The Information Science & Technology Abstracts (ISTA) uses a both a “natural

language” for basic search, and “controlled vocabulary” for other searches. The thesauri in ISTA

with full text include 6,800 terms, 2,700 of which are preferred terms. The standard user

interface of EBSCO is used with the ISTA database, so you would see the latest features

deployed, such as the visual interface and the descriptor list in the sidebar. There are citedness

counts in some records below the title of articles. Most often you don't see any citedness count
Information Science & Technology Abstracts Bartoletti 7

because zero citedness is not reported. “Relevancy rankings” display the exact match to

requested term first, if one exists, followed by subject terms “in order of relevance.”

The first search I used was "digital content” intending to locate information on the

creation and use of digital content. 443 results were returned. I next narrowed using the

additional term “scholarly” and year 2001 – 2010 by using a scrollbar to the right of the results.

The search returned 123 results. From the descriptor list to the left of the results, I narrowed the

search by selecting digital content and “information storage & retrieval” to find 13 results. Next

I chose the even narrower topic of digital content creation to get 6 results of which 3 were useful.

Some useful Related Terms (RT) examples:

MUSEUMS

LIBRARY materials – Digitization

LIBRARY materials

LIBRARY information networks

Some useful Narrower Term (NT) examples:

Digital libraries

The exhaustivity and specificity of the database is largely based on the searchers skill at

determining key terms and concepts used in the thesaurus. In spite of some deficiencies, this is

an exceptionally useful database for professionals looking for most current articles on

library/information science and technology.

ISTA Search Features Part Three

Information Science & Technology Abstracts Bartoletti 8

The search features for ISTA are summarized in this section. The default index is

keyword and the user is able to search by document title and entire document under Basic

Search. ISTA uses Boolean AND, OR and NOT operators with Truncation and Wildcard in the

basic and advanced search. Field indexing, searching for the contents of a particular field, is

possible. For instance; an HTML title, HTML keywords, URL, text, or image file can be

searched. Advanced search offers a number of check-box and drop down-menu filters to limit the

search. The check boxes and drop-down menus are as follows.

Limit to documents with images

Publication type – periodical, conference paper, book or newspaper

Number of pages – only those items of a certain number of pages.

Limit by publication dates

Limit by publication titles

Limit by subject area

Limit to records with links to full text documents

Limit to peer-reviewed journals

Limit to document types

There are two additional checkboxes. One is meant to limit the search to “cover stories”

that has potential to limit the search to articles which are the main themes of an issue of a

journal. Since there do not appear to be such designation in ISTA the result will always be zero.

The other check-box can limit the search to records which have been enhanced by a list of cited

Specific search
 Information Science & Technology Abstracts Bartoletti 9

references, as these can lead the users to records of closely related other articles. This option will

show items that have citations of a particular author, source, title or year. Some records in ISTA

will display “Times Cited in this Database.” If you click the times cited in hyperlink on a result,

the “Citing Articles” sub-tab presents a list of records that cite your original article. For example,

the result of the search string “digital media or digital technology or digital content and

curriculum and use studies” has 8 hits and is enhanced by one more cited reference. This feature

can be useful for having a good bibliography. The images below show a “times cited” search.

Results with times cited

Clicking on times cited link.

Information Science & Technology Abstracts Bartoletti 10

Search helps for the ISTA database are available though the EBSCOhost at

http://support.ebsco.com/. There is no specific help for the ISTA database in EBSCOhost.

EBSCOhost includes a documentation page with technical requirements and general help for all

of the EBSCOhost databases. A personalized folder may be created in any of the databases to

save results and set up regular content alerts. Individual results can be output in most commonly

used citation styles – APA, AMA, Chicago, MLA, or Vancouver/ICMJE Style. The user may e-

mail, print or save citation results with some attachments as full-text publications. The outputs

are available are in html, text and Portable Document Format (PDF) or export to RefWorks.

Building Block sample search

Initially, a search was created in ISTA for “digital content”. The component facets are

digital, content, education, higher education. The terms for each facet are digital media, digital

technology, content, education, educational, educational curriculum, higher education, tertiary

education. A quick test for specific facet shows digital content or digital technology with 6504

hits. The building blocks for this search are:

Digital content or digital technology = s1

Education or educational or educational curriculum = s2

Higher education or tertiary education = s3

Information Science & Technology Abstracts Bartoletti 11

Combining the building blocks with Boolean logic is shown in the image below and results in

556 hits.

S1 and S2 and S3 results

The results are filtered by linked full text, scholarly and peer
reviewed journals and to the years 2000-2010 reulting in 6 useful
Information Science & Technology Abstracts Bartoletti 12

Useful Results from ISTA Building Block Search

Ford, K. (2009). Ambivalence towards convergence: digitalization and media change. Journal of

the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 60(2), 427-428.

Anderson, R., Arndell, M., & Christensen, S. (2009). Architecture studio archive: a case study in

the comprehensive digital capture and repository of student design work as an aid to

teaching, research and accreditation. Australian Academic & Research Libraries, 40(4),

286-304. Retrieved from Information Science & Technology Abstracts (ISTA) database.

Mussinelli, C. (2009). Digital generation: overview of cultural and entertainment content usage

in Italy. Publishing Research Quarterly, 25(2), 94-100.

Mutula, S. (2008). Local content development projects in Africa. South African Journal of

Library & Information Science, 74(2), 105-115. Retrieved from Information Science &

Technology Abstracts (ISTA) database.

Information Science & Technology Abstracts Bartoletti 13

Salembier, P., & Benitez, A. (2007). Structure description tools. Journal of the American Society

for Information Science & Technology, 58(9), 1329-1337.

Marchionini, G., Wildemuth, B., & Geisler, G. (2006). The Open Video Digital Library: a

Möbius strip of research and practice. Journal of the American Society for Information

Science & Technology, 57(12), 1629-1643.

Conclusions about BB sample search

ISTA supports Boolean operators to combine the concepts in a building block search

strategy. If a search is needed for a phrase enter it inside quotation marks. For example, “digital

content” will find occurrences of these two words together and in that order. More relevant

results are achieved with the advanced search than the basic search. Misspellings are redirected

to possible correct terms. Misspelling of words as “digitll content” led to “Did you mean:

“digital content”, “digitally content”, “digit content” as well as hints for searching.

The database is user friendly with help support from EBSCO. ISTA provides quick,

efficient retrieval of reference information using a building block search. The results are easily

navigated by novice and expert users. The building block search allows users to quickly view

article results and images based upon their needs. It offers the unique ability to locate graphics as

well as text. Advanced searching capabilities and CCL options are well adapted to advanced

searching techniques. Overall this database provides the combination of content and ease of use

to meet most user’s needs via the basic and building block searches.

Database Evaluation Tests

Information Science & Technology Abstracts Bartoletti 14

Coverage

About 400 periodical publications are designated by EBSCO as core journals of the ISTA

literature, and 165 publications with priority and selective coverage. ISTA has a smaller base of

periodical publications in comparison to others such as SocINDEX and LibLiT and does not

have as long retrospective coverage. The depth of coverage of ISTA seems to be good in a

sample search for the periodical “Annual Review of Information Science and Technology”

(ARIST). Putting just the title of the publication in the Source (SO) field resulted in 276 hits.

Replicating the search in LibLit and SocINDEX resulted in “0” hits.

Information Science & Technology Abstracts Bartoletti 15

Search results with no fields selected for “digital” and “content” are ISTA (2190), LibLit (682)

and SocINDEX (220).

Currency

While the retrospective coverage of ISTA is not as good as in LibLit and SocINDEX it is

current. There may be a time gap of several months after an article is published in print and an

indexing and abstracting record of it becomes available in a database. There seems to be

agreements between EBSCO for a direct feed from scholarly publishers for the most current

article citations. In some areas relating to technology and information science currency is more

important than the full text document. A search for “digital AND content” limited to the dates of

May-July 2010 resulted in 24 hits.

Predictability and Retrievability

Information is unpredictable. Information may mean a number of different things to

different users. If the retrieval utility of an information database suffers from low predictability,

the indexing of must have low utility (Enser, 1995). A database search can retrieve many items

that match a user’s stated request but may still be of little value to the user. ISTA does have more

results than either LibLit or SocINDEX for the sample searches performed, but the results are

less predictable and retrieveable. The information on the results page gives the subject headings

of the articles as well as title, author, publication and date. The user can click on the article link

to get more information. The use of the same search terms in a basic or advanced search resulted

in the same information. Re-arranging the facets for the search had no effect on the results.

Searching with misspelled words results in no items found.

Precision and Recall

Information Science & Technology Abstracts Bartoletti 16

On page 189, Chu (2003) defines “precision = relevant documents retrieved/total number

of documents.” Recall is supposed to measure how much you retrieve that is relevant (Chu, 70).

Number of Relevant Items Retrieved

∗100
Total Number Relevant Items in Collection

Recall =
Number of Relevant Items Retrieved
* 100
Total Number of Items Retrieved

Results for ISTA Recall & Precision on the search “digital” AND “content.”

R: 45.9%

P: 3.9%

Value of ISTA
Precision =
This is an exceptionally useful database for librarians and information professionals who

want open access to the largest and most current indexing/abstracting database on

library/information science and technology, as well as to half a million full text articles via

LISTA through EBSCO. For this database, keyword searches are more successful than controlled

vocabulary term lists. Doing more than one search always helped improve results. Many users

only do one search and stick to the top hits. For failed searches, the most common problems is

poor word choice and having too many limits. The database has good and detailed summaries of

each result and no large variations/fluctuations in the results from identical searches at different
Information Science & Technology Abstracts Bartoletti 17

times, except for retreiving new articles. The database is very easy to use and provides search

options for both novice and expert users. Overall this database is a ready and accurate weapon in

the librarians aresenal of information sources.

References

Chu, Heting. 2003. Information representation and retrieval in the digital age. Medford, NJ:

American Society for Information Science and Technology, ASIST monograph series

Ebsco Host Connection. Retrieved from http://connection.ebscohost.com/content/

EBSCO Publishing. Retrieved from http://www.ebscohost.com/

EBSCO Publishing Peer Review Policy. Retrieved from

http://www.ebscohost.com/thisTopic.php?topicID=396&marketID=
Information Science & Technology Abstracts Bartoletti 18

Enser, P.G.B. 1995. Progress in Documentation: Pictorial Information Retrieval. Journal of

Documentation. 51(2): 126-170

Information Today. Retrieved from http://www.infotoday.com/

Information Science & Technology Thesaurus. (2009). Retrieved from

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/thesaurus?vid=2&hid=8&sid=bb81003c-cc48-4dfd-

8a97-593c9d9ec7a8%40sessionmgr10