In chemistry for example, the added chemical structure indexing added by Chemical Abstracts, especially its online version SciFinder Scholar, offers absolutely essential searching capability that is part of the general working life of most chemists. In biology the equivalent is the biological organism indexing added by Biological Abstracts Service in Biological Abstracts and Zoological Record. Here it would be much more practical for the original papers to carry exact scientific names for the organisms studied, and indeed most of them do. But these indexes cover an immensely wider scope than the presently available online journals. In many subject areas, though, the subject indexing added by the secondary services does not add much to what can be done with keywords if abstracts or the equivalent are available.
Citation indexes are a special case.
It is clear that the links in Pubmed, Pubsci, and equivalents give the same potential for backwards lionking that Science Citation Index does. What has to be extracted from the articles at greater expense by ISI, can now presumably be done much more inexpensively by automatic programs. And the comments apply to a number of secondary services. Yes - if they are quick and easy to search, and identify key documents. WebForum created by Storm 1996.