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RSS feedsElsevier has announced its first three customers for the newly-launched Scopus abstract and indexing (A&I) database. The product was given its official send-off at London's Science Museum last Wednesday.
Libraries at the universities of Toronto and Nevada Las Vegas, both of which took part in the two-year development programme, have signed long-term agreements for the service, alongside the first new customer, the University of Newcastle in Australia.
Other big-name university development partners - notably Oxford, Pepperdine and Pittsburgh - have yet to sign for Scopus. A company source said that partners were being offered very "friendly" terms to turn their links with Scopus into actual sales.
At the launch in London last Wednesday, staff from the American University of Beirut (AUB) gave a strong endorsement to the new product from a European perspective.
AUB Medical librarian Hilda Nassar, said: "We have been looking for a citation tool other than ISI Web of Knowledge, which was not satisfying our users. Because the number of journals is limited, our users were not finding all the citations they wanted." Another AUB colleague said that outside of the US, many researchers were finding that their articles were not included in ISI, which was causing frustration.
Scopus offers users a clean interface, easy searchability, and tools that help refine searches. "It's not about searching, it's all about finding," said Eefke Smit, Science Direct MD. "Scopus doesn't require you to be a search expert!" Thomson has responded to the Scopus challenge in recent months by launching a new Analyse tool which helps refine results from a complex search.
Elsevier does, however, have an uphill task in making inroads into Thomson ISI's customer base - 750 of whom have bought access to the entire Web of Science backfile.
"A recent example of notable customer loyalty was the Australian Vice Chancellor's Committee, which extended its access to ISI Web of Knowledge for an additional five years," a Thomson spokesman told IWR.
