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About ADAT

The JISC Academic Database Assessment Tool (ADAT) aims to help libraries to make informed decisions about future subscriptions to bibliographic databases.

The site provides access to detailed information and title lists for major bibliographic and full text databases, and key service information for database and eBook content platforms.

In each case the information has been provided directly by the relevant suppliers and is presented here as a resource to assist librarians in their purchasing decisions. The site provides functionality to compare databases automatically. Any combination of databases can be compared in order to generate lists of relevant titles.

The site is provided under a Creative Commons license.

Project History

An original prototype version of the ADAT site and an accompanying companion report were released in October 2006. These resulted from a 'Study Evaluating Bibliographic and Citation Databases in use by the UK Higher Education Community' which was conducted by Nick Andrews Consultancy on behalf of JISC Collections between June and September 2006.

In response to positive feedback from librarians and suppliers, this new version of the site has been developed by DataSalon and relaunched in November 2007. The new and improved ADAT site includes the following enhancements:

Data Sourcing

All of the data presented within the ADAT site has been sourced directly from participating suppliers and is presented "as is". A summary of title listings provided by suppliers is available to download, highlighting areas where suppliers have been unable to provide information where this is not available to them. Suppliers are able to make ongoing updates to any of their information at any time to add missing fields and keep the system up to date.

The source data has not been independently validated and is provided here in good faith. JISC Collections and DataSalon are unable to warrant that the information provided is complete, correct or free of errors. However, all of the participating suppliers have made best efforts to provide full and accurate data, and it is hoped that this assessment tool will therefore provide librarians with a useful point of reference.

Comparison Method

The ADAT system enables users to search and compare title lists from many different suppliers.

To enable this comparison, the service needs to join together titles from different suppliers ‘behind the scenes’. It does this based on some simple rules:

  • If Print ISSN is provided, join on Print ISSN.
  • If Online ISSN is provided, and there is no Print ISSN, join on Online ISSN.
  • If there is no Print ISSN and no Online ISSN, join on Title.

Users should note that this comparison method relies upon ISSNs being consistently and correctly listed by all database suppliers. Comparisons may fail to identify title overlaps in the following cases:

  • If a title has been listed by the database supplier with an incorrect ISSN.
  • If an ISSN has not been supplied, and if the title provided does not match exactly the title used in other databases.

Supplier Guidelines

Suppliers have been asked to adhere to a '50% rule' when stating their level of coverage for a title, which applies to the following fields in search results:

  • Abstracts
  • Citations
  • Cover to Cover
  • Full Text

In each of these cases, where 'Yes' is stated, this must be true for more than 50% of the content referred to. For example, 20 years of coverage for a journal must not be marked as 'Abstracts = Yes' unless this is true for majority of volumes covered during those years.

Sponsorship

ADAT is made possible thanks to the support of JISC Collections and data suppliers who kindly sponsor the service. Participation is free and open to all suppliers - sponsorship is voluntary. Contact us if you are a supplier wishing to join or sponsor the service.