Full text coverage of marketing journals in databases

The increasing availability of digital editions of journals, and/or the incorporation of the full‐text versions of their papers in the largest aggregator databases, have been the highlights in the coming of age of digital libraries from many perspectives, ranging from collection development to preservation, from ready reference services to creating digital carrels. Full‐text availability of research papers through several digital resources is not merely a great convenience for distributing knowledge, but also an indirect indicator of the acknowledgement of the popularity and importance of journals and other serial publications (such as conference proceedings) in many disciplines where such sources are the primary venues for scholarly and professional publishing. One of the purposes of the author's current research project was to find out how well three business databases reflect the popularity and familiarity of peer ranking and rating through 50 top rated marketing‐focused and marketing‐related periodicals in the full‐text coverage of those journals. This paper seeks to present some results.

The target journals were selected from the list of 50 marketing‐focused and marketing‐related journals ranked by nearly 630 faculty members from marketing departments of US and international universities in an outstanding large scale survey and research project by Hult et al. The presence and time‐span of coverage of 50 journals and conference proceedings was analysed in three of the largest (partially) full‐text business databases.

The research found that many highly rated and ranked journals in the sample were absent or very modestly present in the full‐text subset even in the largest and most widely licensed three business databases tested.

The research adds a new dimension to evaluating databases by the specific criteria of full text availability of journals and other serial publications.