Comparative analysis of the capabilities of WoS and eLibrary for analyzing bibliographic networks

Abstract

This article presents a comparative analysis of two major scientific publication databases: Web of Science Core Collection and eLibrary – to identify their differences and unique opportunities for exploration of bibliographic networks of Russian scientific authors. Current shortage of tools and approaches for collection, processing and analysis of bibliographic data in the Russian language constitutes the relevance of this study. Empirical analysis is based on comparison of respective arrays of scientific publications in the field of sociology over the period of 2010-2021. We propose a set of comparison criteria including those related to the procedure of data access, quality of data management, quantitative and qualitative features of the data. Inspection of the databases based on the proposed criteria aids in identification of intersections between both the collections and the respective qualitative observations about them. We make conclusions regarding the comparative advantages and weaknesses of both databases in regards to their potential as the sole data source for bibliographic studies, and make recommendations for their effective use in research on Russian science.