Secondary publishers like CABI add value by processing original content from primary sources to make it more discoverable through bibliographic records, controlled indexing, and links to full text. While search engines can find some information, specialized databases provide relevant context within a discipline through extra indexing terms and limitations of general search engines. Secondary publishers are still relevant as they turn search into efficient finding of information through filtering, organization, and adding value beyond the original source.

1. Discoverability within Context
- How Secondary Publishers Add Value
Andrea Powell, Executive Director, Publishing, CABI
a.powell@cabi.org

2. What do A&I services do again?
● Identify appropriate primary literature within specific
discipline (e.g. life science, engineering, medicine)
● Acquire content (on an on-going basis)
● Select relevant items within source documents (i.e. apply a
quality and relevance filter)
● Process original content to generate a bibliographic record,
with controlled indexing, standardised terminology, additional
terms to aid retrievability and (increasingly) links to full-text
● Create searchable database for delivery via a multitude of
platforms and formats
● And all kinds of other things (of which more later)

3. CAB Abstracts – an example
● Subject scope = agriculture, environment & associated
applied life sciences
● Coverage = 1910 – 2007 (7.75 million references)
● Journals covered = c. 8000 per annum (in print or online)
● Over 50 languages covered, from over 115 countries
● Non-serial items covered = books, reports, conference
proceedings, bulletins, Websites
● New records added per year = 225,000 (vs. 150,000 in
2000)
● Controlled vocabulary = CAB Thesaurus
● Availability = online, CD-ROM, in print, via numerous
vendors

4. Oh, and we employ people to do this

6. Extra indexing terms
added during A&I
process to aid
discoverability

7. Are A&I services relevant today?
● Don’t web search engines do the same job?
● Don’t publishers make their bibliographic
information freely searchable online anyway?
● Don’t we all add metadata to our journal articles
these days and deposit them with CrossRef?
● Isn’t Google Scholar good enough?

8. The Charleston Advisor says…
“The vast majority of academic literature is found in
the Hidden Web. While Google Scholar has made
valiant attempts to include a range of resources in
this category, it is apparent that coverage leans
heavily on the sciences, rarely includes all the
offerings even from partner publishers and misses
many of the quality resources which are more usually
accessible to scholars through institutional
subscriptions.”

9. GlaxoSmithKline says…
● Google Scholar is not the answer to all information
needs:
● Not comprehensive
● Not always up-to-date
● Still in beta!
● Insecure (on the open Web)
● Traditional A&I databases should still be used
● Although Google Scholar has been rolled out on
the desktop, usage of traditional databases has
remained stable – it is complementary, not
competitive
Jennifer Whittaker, UKSG, April 2007

10. Context is King
Specialised A&I databases identify the most relevant
content to match the needs of the user, present it
alongside associated material and, increasingly, add
value to the source information through text mining,
linking and analysis.

11. A&I services turn “search” into “find”
“On average, respondents claimed that it would take 2.7 times
longer to find and search the relevant literature if they were
denied access to CAB Abstracts”
“In addition, users believed that in using the alternatives, they
would find, on average, only 64% of the information they would
have obtained using CAB Abstracts.”
“The estimated annual benefit to Australia of using CAB
Abstracts is between AUS $473k and $788k”
- Benefits to Australia of selected CABI products, ACIAR, October 2006

12. Increasing your content discoverability
DO DON’T
● Provide content freely and ● Ask for royalties or usage reports
regularly and in an appropriate ● Forget to apply same rules to
format (e.g. by providing gratis online journals and e-books (e.g.
access to your website or by for citation) as to print ones
delivering XML feed) ● Place restrictions on use of
● Let us know of any changes to abstracts
your publications ● Publish without an English title
● Send us your non-serial items ● Ask us to use usernames and
● Allocate DOIs to each item and passwords to access your content
deposit them ● Devise your own taxonomy
● Provide abstracts for everything,
including books

13. Plus ça change…
● CAS celebrated its 100th birthday in January 2007
● CABI’s first secondary publication was launched in
1910 and is still going strong today
● The INSPEC archive dates back to 1898
● but our products have evolved over time in
response to user needs and the explosion of
content

14. Adding value and context
● Ei – Engineering Village
● user-allocated tags: “bottom up indexing from users”
● users urged to tag any record in Ei Village for public, private,
institutional or group use
● CSA Illustrata
● provides web-based access to indexed tables, figures, maps, graphs,
charts and other images contained in scholarly articles, providing
researchers with precision, efficiency, and relevance in the data
discovery process.
● CAS & STN - STN Viewer
● a new web-based workflow productivity tool. STN Viewer helps
researchers to manage and evaluate full-text patent documents in the
STN collection of patent databases.

15. Adding value and context
● Scopus
● Addition of the “h-index” to cited authors (like an Impact Factor
for authors)
● Use of visualisation tools around the h-index for monitoring
author performance
● CAB Abstracts Plus
● Third party full text journals & conferences, focusing on “hard to
find” content (120 journals & 220 conferences so far)
● CAB Reviews – comprehensive and authoritative analysis of
developments in a specific subject area
● Scientific data – Distribution Maps, Descriptions of Fungi &
Bacteria

16. Using Web 2.0 methods to draw users to
content…. (yours and ours)
● CABI Blog – “hand picked… and carefully sorted”
● CABI editors regularly post items that catch their eye,
drawing attention to hot topics and then referring (subtly)
to related content in CAB Abstracts
● Blog posts are picked up by search engines and other
bloggers through services like Technorati, Connotea and
deli.cio.us
● Not a “hard sell” but an excellent profile-raising exercise,
emphasising the scientific skills of CABI staff and
enhancing our brand

18. If you can’t beat ‘em…
● CABI lets Google index a large portion of the CAB
Abstracts database for Google Scholar
● Puts our content where the users (not the librarians) start
their research
● Encourages usage of the database within subscribing
institutions (which the librarians like)
● Raises profile of CABI and our products (which we like)
● Brings more eye-balls to the full-text (which you like!)

20. In conclusion
As the amount of published information increases,
and the time people have to spend looking for it
decreases, discovery services are as vital as ever.
Work with secondary services in your discipline to
make life easier for your customers!