Publications and Bibliographies
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Publications and Bibliographies | |
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Anthropology in Zoological Record
Zoological Record, 1978- . Available on the Web, on CD's, or online via
Dialog.
BIOSIS can be contacted at:
Three vendors currently providing subscriptions to Zoological Record
electronically are:
Dialog Corporation, 11000 Regency Parkway, Suite 10
SilverPlatter Information, Inc., 100 River Ridge Drive,
Norwood, MA 02062-5043
Zoological Record is also available in print form directly from BIOSIS. This review is based on an examination of the Zoological Record database using Cambridge Scientific Abstracts' Internet Database Service (IDS) during the spring and summer of 2001. This is the same interface described in the review of Ecology Abstracts that appeared in the previous issue of ANSS Currents. CSA calls this database service ZR Plus. Introduction: If biological or physical anthropology is the branch of modern anthropology that is the most scientific in its scope and methodologies, we may assume that its literature will appropriately be indexed in bibliographic sources catering to the information needs of scientists, particularly biologists. Although indexes to the social sciences literature (where anthropology is traditionally located), will often index periodical and other resources in physical anthropology, researchers may turn to Zoological Record for fuller coverage of the biological anthropology literature. For example, Anthropological Literature (AL), which indexes the holdings of Tozzer Library, Harvard's anthropology collection, indexes American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Folia Primatologica, Human Evolution and other core journals in physical anthropology. It does not index large numbers of biology publications of interest to physical anthropologists. Zoological Record(ZR) indexes the world's literature on animal research. It is a database primarily of bibliographic citations, other content being optional. Potential subscribers can easily weigh exactly what content and services each vendor of ZR offers by referring to a handy chart on the BIOSIS Web site that compares features available from each vendor. Currently, Cambridge Scientific Abstracts provides English-language abstracts back to 1978 as well as full-text journal links via document locators. SilverPlatter and Dialog just began providing abstracts in 2001, but these vendors do not have links to full-text journal articles at this time. For example, although SilverPlatter has introduced SilverLinker, which links its databases to the full text of articles from a growing list of journal publishers, Zoological Record is not currently included in this service. Because features and services evolve quickly, potential subscribing libraries should consult vendors' Web sites as well as BIOSIS's. Size, Currency, Scope and Coverage: The Zoological Record database begins in 1978, and all vendors provide monthly updates of the file to subscribers. BIOSIS adds over 70,000 entries to ZR each year, and from 1978 to May, 2001, the database encompasses over 1.5 million records. More than 4,500 serial publications from over 100 countries are monitored for inclusion. Document types include articles, books, meetings, meeting papers, CD's, software, online resources, diskettes and microforms, but not dissertations unless they have been published in the conventional sense. The geographic range of source publications in ZR is worldwide, as
indicated by the following figures:
English-language documents currently comprise just 65% of the database (975,000 citations). Some recent searches limited solely by language yielded 83,000 Russian, 79,000 German, 56,500 French, 33,000 Spanish, and 24,500 Japanese citations. The indexing of World Wide Web sites in many languages is evidently becoming a priority for BIOSIS, with a recent search yielding some 125,000 sites in English, 423 in German and 44 in Russian. Ideally, the depth of the coverage of ZR would be matched by its timeliness, and in this regard it seems to do a better job than Anthropological Literature for journals indexed in both. The time lag for key journals is several months. By early September, 2001, ZR Plus had indexed monthly issues of American Journal of Physical Anthropology (AJPA) through the May issue. AL had indexed the same journal only through the March issue. The April, 2001, issue of the quarterly Primates; a Journal of Primatology was indexed in ZR Plus but not yet in AL. BIOSIS's overview of the scope of Zoological Record notes that the database emphasizes natural biology and systematics of [non-human] animals. It covers anthropology "only when the study focuses on the natural biology of the animal." The editorial policy continues, "Coverage normally excludes Homo sapiens, but papers which discuss humans and animals together are covered for the animals provided they are within the general scope. Papers discussing extinct relatives of humans (e.g., Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis) are included." Studies of modern human populations are not. Zoological Record's indexing is comprehensive when covering systematic zoology. Otherwise it is selective, and it is worth noting some examples of this selectivity. ZR did not index two articles on evidence of disease in human skeletons published in the April issue of AJPA, one of which focused on medieval skeletons in England and the other on prehistoric and early historic Native American skeletons in the U.S. In the May issue, a study about the DNA of a prehistoric Great Basin population was not indexed. In the March issue, Anthropological Literature indexed articles on prehistoric Peruvian skeletons and on the biology of a present-day Papua New Guinea population, but ZR did not. This missing literature, by and for researchers in a major subfield of biological anthropology, must therefore be identified in another way, and AL is clearly one way to fill this gap. To demonstrate further how the two indexes complement each other, AL indexes journals such as Annals of Human Biology, Annals of Human Genetics, and Social Biology, while ZR does not. User Guidance: Cambridge Scientific Abstracts offers extensive general online assistance for all products in its Internet Database Service. A link from the CSA-IDS Zoological Recordfact sheet refers the user to a Quick Reference Card published by BIOSIS. For additional help specific to Zoological Record researchers must turn to BIOSIS which publishes in print form two essential guides, some elements of which are also available on the Web. 1. Search Guide The Zoological Record Search Guide with Master Index, updated in print form annually, is comprised of five sections: Editorial Policies, Search System Information, Search Fundamentals, Thesaurus (Subject and Systematic), and Master Index. The Master Index is a list of over 16,000 controlled and non-controlled terms with references to the Subject and Systematic Thesaurus sections. It is identified as the place to begin when starting to develop a search strategy, and, indeed, it is this highly controlled vocabulary, so essential when doing research in the biological sciences, that sets Zoological Record apart from other indexes covering some of the physical anthropology literature. The Thesaurus, which has been developed over 20 years and contains some 10,000 terms, is divided into two parts - Systematic and Subject, both of which are also available online http://www.biosis.org/free_resources/zr_taxhier.html The Subject Thesaurus is comprised of 3,000 terms arranged in hierarchies representing major subject and geographic areas. Full scope and history notes are included. The Systematic Thesaurus consists of 7,000 taxonomic names, at family level and above, arranged phylogenetically in a hierarchical classification scheme representing the various taxonomic groups of the animal kingdom. Of key importance to paleoanthropologists, the Systematic Thesaurus identifies fossil forms as such. 2. Sources Zoological Record Serial Sources, available only in print format, contains a complete list of all 10,000 currently and previously indexed titles. Updated annually, it includes all relevant bibliographic information such as ISSNs, title changes, abbreviations and publishers. Information about the approximately 4,500 active sources currently monitored for inclusion in ZR is available both in print form in the above volume and online at http://www.biosis.org.uk/training_support/documentation/ZR_journals.html. Electronic Record Structure, Retrieval and Search Results: Many elements are indexed and searchable in ZR Plus. Fields, listed alphabetically by two-letter code, are:
Searching ZR Plus begins with identifying terms of interest in the Master Index, which then leads the researcher to either the Subject or Systematic Thesaurus. The Systematic Thesaurus allows the searcher to distinguish among Supertaxa (58 broad animal groups, including Mammals) in English vernacular terms. These are broken down into scientific animal names (such as Primates, Hominidae, Lemuridae, or Pongidae). If the scientific name is not known, searchers can try a preliminary search using a vernacular name to locate references where the vernacular is mentioned. Scanning the Title and Systematics fields of a few retrieved records should yield the scientific name. For example, a quick search under the keyword "baboon" quickly yields the scientific name Cercopithecidae, which can then be used for a more comprehensive search. The Subject Thesaurus contains the controlled terms used to index subject
concepts (in British English, as we are usefully reminded in the Search
Guide). It consists of 46 hierarchies, with the position of a term in a
hierarchy indicating both the scope of the term and its relation to other
terms. Of these 46 major headings, several are immediately obvious as
useful for anthropologists:
The following sample searches were performed. Combining the controlled subject terms "primate" or "primates" and "behaviour" yields 52 hits in the 2001 subfile. Of these just 24 appeared in journals also indexed by Anthropological Literature. The sources exclusively indexed by ZR included such journals as Behavioural Processes, Molecular Ecology, Animal Welfare, Physiology & Behavior, and the African Journal of Ecology. A search for works by some primatologists and paleoanthropologists was also undertaken. Hits for works by authors Jane Goodall, Tim D. White, Mary Leakey, and Donald C. Johanson were about evenly divided between those which could also be found in Anthropological Literature (AL) and those which could not. Some of the works not in AL were from general science periodicals such as Science, Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and National Geographic, which are too multidisciplinary to be held by Harvard's Tozzer Library. Of course these sources will also be indexed in other general indexes available in our libraries. As suggested by some of the controlled terms identified from the Subject Thesaurus, ZR is also valuable for researchers in both archaeology and cultural anthropology. Searching the term "archaeological sites" in Zoological Record produces 1,590 hits. A look at the first 50 journal citations reveals a pattern somewhat different from that above: 30 are from journals also indexed by Anthropological Literature and the remaining 20 are all from scholarly journals not likely to be indexed in other indexes, either general or specialized. Search results may be limited geographically. For instance, combining "archaeological sites" and "Africa" yields 31 hits, and limiting by "North America" yields 15. By limiting with the descriptor "prehistoric" we pared our list of 1,590 hits all the way down to 155, however, a quick look at some of the results from the non-limited search of "archaeological sites" indicates that many of these do in fact concern prehistoric sites. But their authors have not used the term "prehistoric" in their titles or abstracts, indicating that this particular delimiter is not too useful. One of the surprises to be found in ZR Plus for this reviewer was the amount of interesting cultural anthropology indexed in it. And because of the scientific focus of the source publications, it is fair to assume that this material will be indexed in few general or anthropology indexes. Searches were done on some of the controlled subject terms mentioned above with the following results: "animals and man" (2,652 hits); "human primitive cultures" (213 hits); and "mythology, folklore and religion" (1,143 hits). Included was an article about the relationship between man and cave bears in Romania that appeared in the proceedings of a speleology conference. Another was entitled, "The role of birds in the culture of the Ndebele people of Zimbabwe," which appeared in the journal Ostrich published by the South African Ornithological Society. What was my favorite? That must be "Rock paintings related to honey hunting," published in Bee World, the organ of the International Bee Research Association. Recent Enhancements: Zoological Record has begun indexing ejournals. Although other indexes are no doubt doing likewise, this reviewer is unaware of any right now. (Such a study might be an appropriate subject of another review.) Searches yielded citations to articles in Mediterranean Prehistory Online and Internet Archaeology, among others. ZR also now indexes Web resources, though it is not immediately apparent if it is BIOSIS or Cambridge Scientific Abstracts that is responsible for this enhancement. The News & Events page on CSA's Web site does not at present discuss this service, and while BIOSIS's News Releases and Announcements page tantalizingly refers to a January, 2001 news item entitled "Zoological Record Announces New Product Enhancements," this was a dead link when I clicked on it. When searches did result in references to Web resources, these were always identified separately from printed references. It does not appear to be possible to limit search results to Web resources only. Unfortunately, indexing of Web resources does not seem to utilize the same controlled subject vocabulary as does indexing the printed literature. Three Web resources were identified when keyword searching on the term "baboons," but none when searching "Cercopithecidae" in the Systematic Index. Two Web resources were identified when keyword searching on the term "Neanderthals," but none when searching "Homo neanderthalensis" in the Systematic Index. Furthermore, these Web resources seem to be identified for indexing simply by electronically scanning Web pages. The three sites resulting from the "baboons" search each took us to the individual home page of an academic biological or medical researcher who uses baboons in his research. A quick look at these home pages suggests that the reader would learn about what is being done in these three laboratories, but very little about baboons. A search of "archaeological sites" yielded two Web pages, and in one case it is clear that it came up only because the phrase appears on the Web page. On its Environmental Fact Sheet for the Contoocook River, the New Hampshire Rivers Management and Protection Program mentions that there are seven recorded archaeological sites on it. The sites are not named, nor are there links to them. All this suggests to me that without an evaluation of the content of Web resources with more focused subject analysis, their indexing in Zoological Record offers little of value to the serious researcher. Conclusion: Zoological Record is a highly valuable resource for research in primatology and paleoanthropology, a significant caveat being that it does not cover the physical anthropology of modern humans. Its thorough monitoring of the world's literature and timely indexing are noteworthy, as is the choice available to subscribers among various options and providers. Zoological Record's subject and systematic indexing with highly controlled vocabulary all serve to provide access to the literature unparalleled by other indexes. Web sites in this review:
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