Web-of-Science results of more than 100,000 items

[Loet Leydesdorff]

The Web of Science interface counts at most 100,000 retrieved items from a
single query. If the query results in a dataset containing more than 100,000
items the number of retrieved items is indicated as >100,000. The problem
studied here is how to find the exact number of items in a query that leads
to more than 100,000 items. One way to achieve this objective is presented.
The retrieval of the entire scientific production from the United States in
a specific year (2007) is counted and an advanced search strategy is
designed. Different sections of items can be retrieved using the Source
field of the database. A Boolean statement was created with the aim of
eliminating overlapped sections and improving the accuracy of this search
strategy

Ricardo Arencibia-Jorge, Loet Leydesdorff, Zaida Chinchilla-Rodríguez,
Ronald Rousseau and Soren W. Paris. Retrieval of very large numbers of items
in the Web of Science: an exercise to develop accurate search strategies. El
Profesional de la Información 2009;18(5):529-533.
http://www.elprofesionaldelainformacion.com/ ; 
http://www.leydesdorff.net/wos09/wos09.pdf [preprint version]
 
________________________________

Loet Leydesdorff 
Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR), 
Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam. 
Tel.: +31-20- 525 6598; fax: +31-20- 525 3681 
loet at leydesdorff.net ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/