STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced that Scopus has launched its Cited References Expansion Program to include cited references in its database going back to 1970 for pre-1996 content.
In addition to increasing the depth of Scopus' scholarly content, including cited references for pre-1996 content will make citation data more accurate, therefore expanding the ability for users to perform long-term, extensive bibliometric and historic trend analyses. Moreover, author profiles and h-index counts of researchers who published articles prior to 1996 will be more complete.
By 2016, an estimated 8 million articles will be enhanced to capture cited references for pre-1996 content; this improvement will first become evident in Scopus in the fourth quarter of 2014. The content added as part of the Cited References Expansion Program is included in the standard annual subscription fee.
Scopus, which claims to be the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature, features smart tools to track, analyse and visualise scholarly research. Its vast database contains abstracts and references from 21,000 titles from more than 5,000 publishers worldwide, ensuring broad interdisciplinary coverage in the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences and Arts & Humanities. Scopus was designed and developed with input from researchers and librarians internationally; and features direct links to subscribed full-text articles, other library resources and interoperability with applications such as reference management software.
