An abstracting service is a service that provides
abstracts
An abstract is a brief summary of a research article, thesis, review, conference proceeding, or any in-depth analysis of a particular subject and is often used to help the reader quickly ascertain the paper's purpose. When used, an abstract always ...
of publications, often on a subject or group of related subjects, usually on a subscription basis. An indexing service is a service that assigns descriptors and other kinds of access points to
document
A document is a written, drawn, presented, or memorialized representation of thought, often the manifestation of non-fictional, as well as fictional, content. The word originates from the Latin ''Documentum'', which denotes a "teaching" o ...
s. The word indexing service is today mostly used for computer programs, but may also cover services providing
back-of-the-book index
An index (plural: usually indexes, more rarely indices; see below) is a list of words or phrases ('headings') and associated pointers ('locators') to where useful material relating to that heading can be found in a document or collection of doc ...
es,
journal indexes
A journal, from the Old French ''journal'' (meaning "daily"), may refer to:
*Bullet journal, a method of personal organization
*Diary, a record of what happened over the course of a day or other period
*Daybook, also known as a general journal, a ...
, and related kinds of
indexes
Index (or its plural form indices) may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities
* Index (''A Certain Magical Index''), a character in the light novel series ''A Certain Magical Index''
* The Index, an item on a Halo megastru ...
. An indexing and abstracting service is a service that provides shortening or summarizing of documents and assigning of descriptors for referencing documents.
[Klempner, Irving M. (1968). ''Diffusion of abstracting and indexing services for government-sponsored research''. Metuchen, N.J. Scarecrow Press.]
The product is often an abstracts journal or a
bibliographic index
A bibliographic index is a bibliography intended to help find a publication. Citations are usually listed by author and subject in separate sections, or in a single alphabetical sequence under a system of authorized headings collectively known as ...
, which may be a subject bibliography or a
bibliographic database
A bibliographic database is a database of bibliographic records, an organized digital collection of references to published literature, including journal and newspaper articles, conference proceedings, reports, government and legal publications, ...
See also
*
Bibliography
*
Citation index
A citation index is a kind of bibliographic index, an index of citations between publications, allowing the user to easily establish which later documents cite which earlier documents. A form of citation index is first found in 12th-century Hebre ...
*
Guide to information sources
A guide is a person who leads travelers, sportspeople, or tourists through unknown or unfamiliar locations. The term can also be applied to a person who leads others to more abstract goals such as knowledge or wisdom.
Travel and recreation
Ex ...
*
List of academic databases and search engines
*
Subject indexing
Subject indexing is the act of describing or classifying a document by index terms, keywords, or other symbols in order to indicate what different documents are ''about'', to summarize their contents or to increase findability. In other words, i ...
References
{{Reflist
External links
*American Society of Indexers: https://web.archive.org/web/20111128132758/http://www.asindexing.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=1
*Society of Indexers (UK): http://www.indexers.org.uk/
Bibliographic databases and indexes