Coverage of specialised biological information by on‐line databases and comparison of this coverage with an in‐house manual system of a special library/information unit

Abstract

The paper reports a coverage study in the field of vegetable insecticides. The coverage of AGRICOLA, BIOSIS and CHEMCON databases is compared with an in‐house manual system of a specialised information unit. The three databases produced a total of 1477 references on the subject, of which 1342 references were considered to be relevant. The total overlap figure between the databases was 393 references. The manual system produced a total of 1307 relevant references. There was an overlap between the manual system and the on‐line databases of 355 references. The computer searches produced 987 references which were not retrieved manually. The manual searches yielded 952 references. The on‐line searching has performed a useful retrieval function. This type of searching can be particularly useful where comprehensive coverage is required.

Citation

Datta, V. (1978), "Coverage of specialised biological information by on‐line databases and comparison of this coverage with an in‐house manual system of a special library/information unit", Program: electronic library and information systems, Vol. 12 No. 2, pp. 55-63. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb046771