Science Citation Index

The Science Citation Index (SCI) is a citation index originally produced by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) and created by Eugene Garfield. It was officially launched in 1964. It is now owned by Clarivate Analytics (previously the Intellectual Property and Science business of Thomson Reuters). The larger version (Science Citation Index Expanded) covers more than 8,500 notable and significant journals, across 150 disciplines, from 1900 to the present. These are alternatively described as the world's leading journals of science and technology, because of a rigorous selection process. The Science Citation Index (SCI) is a citation index originally produced by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) and created by Eugene Garfield. It was officially launched in 1964. It is now owned by Clarivate Analytics (previously the Intellectual Property and Science business of Thomson Reuters). The larger version (Science Citation Index Expanded) covers more than 8,500 notable and significant journals, across 150 disciplines, from 1900 to the present. These are alternatively described as the world's leading journals of science and technology, because of a rigorous selection process. The index is made available online through different platforms, such as the Web of Science and SciSearch. (There are also CD and printed editions, covering a smaller number of journals). This database allows a researcher to identify which later articles have cited any particular earlier article, or have cited the articles of any particular author, or have been cited most frequently. Thomson Reuters also markets several subsets of this database, termed 'Specialty Citation Indexes', such as the Neuroscience Citation Index and the Chemistry Citation Index. The Chemistry Citation Index was first introduced by Eugene Garfield, a chemist by training. His original 'search examples were based on experience as a chemist'. In 1992 an electronic and print form of the index was derived from a core of 330 chemistry journals, within which all areas were covered. Additional information was provided from articles selected from 4,000 other journals. All chemistry subdisciplines were covered: organic, inorganic, analytical, physical chemistry, polymer, computational, organometallic, materials chemistry, and electrochemistry. By 2002 the core journal coverage increased to 500 and related article coverage increased to 8,000 other journals. One 1980 study reported the overall citation indexing benefits for chemistry, examining the use of citations as a tool for the study of the sociology of chemistry and illustrating the use of citation data to 'observe' chemistry subfields over time.