{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,24]],"date-time":"2026-06-24T14:13:33Z","timestamp":1782310413529,"version":"3.54.5"},"reference-count":62,"publisher":"MIT Press","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,1,12]],"date-time":"2022-01-12T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1641945600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":11,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["direct.mit.edu"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":[],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2022,4,12]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title>\n                  <jats:p>Scientometric research often relies on large-scale bibliometric databases of academic journal articles. Long-term and longitudinal research can be affected if the composition of a database varies over time, and text processing research can be affected if the percentage of articles with abstracts changes. This article therefore assesses changes in the magnitude of the coverage of a major citation index, Scopus, over 121 years from 1900. The results show sustained exponential growth from 1900, except for dips during both world wars, and with increased growth after 2004. Over the same period, the percentage of articles with 500+ character abstracts increased from 1% to 95%. The number of different journals in Scopus also increased exponentially, but slowing down from 2010, with the number of articles per journal being approximately constant until 1980, then tripling due to megajournals and online-only publishing. The breadth of Scopus, in terms of the number of narrow fields with substantial numbers of articles, simultaneously increased from one field having 1,000 articles in 1945 to 308 fields in 2020. Scopus\u2019s international character also radically changed from 68% of first authors from Germany and the United States in 1900 to just 17% in 2020, with China dominating (25%).<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1162\/qss_a_00177","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,1,12]],"date-time":"2022-01-12T13:53:15Z","timestamp":1641995595000},"page":"37-50","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1162\/mitpressjournals.corrections.policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":179,"title":["Scopus 1900\u20132020: Growth in articles, abstracts, countries, fields, and journals"],"prefix":"10.1162","volume":"3","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6065-205X","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Mike","family":"Thelwall","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton, UK"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-3304-0469","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Pardeep","family":"Sud","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton, UK"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"281","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,4,12]]},"reference":[{"issue":"1","key":"2022041221313634400_bib1","first-page":"83","article-title":"Building blocks of medical abstracts: Frequency, functions and structures of lexical bundles","volume":"14","author":"Abdollahpour","year":"2018","journal-title":"Asian ESP Journal"},{"key":"2022041221313634400_bib2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"66","DOI":"10.1136\/oem.1.1.66","article-title":"Editorial","volume":"1","author":"Anonymous","year":"1944","journal-title":"British Journal of Industrial Medicine"},{"issue":"4","key":"2022041221313634400_bib3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"636","DOI":"10.1108\/JDOC-09-2015-0111","article-title":"On the composition of scientific abstracts","volume":"72","author":"Atanassova","year":"2016","journal-title":"Journal of Documentation"},{"key":"2022041221313634400_bib4","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1108\/JSMA-01-2021-0002","article-title":"Behavioral strategy: Mapping the trends, sources and intellectual evolution","author":"Anwar","year":"2021","journal-title":"Journal of Strategy and Management"},{"issue":"1","key":"2022041221313634400_bib5","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"377","DOI":"10.1162\/qss_a_00019","article-title":"Scopus as a curated, high-quality bibliometric data source for academic research in quantitative science studies","volume":"1","author":"Baas","year":"2020","journal-title":"Quantitative Science Studies"},{"key":"2022041221313634400_bib6","article-title":"Breaking the 1996 barrier: Scopus adds nearly 4 million pre-1996 articles and more than 83 million references","author":"Beatty","year":"2015","journal-title":"Scopus Blog"},{"issue":"1","key":"2022041221313634400_bib7","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"363","DOI":"10.1162\/qss_a_00018","article-title":"Web of Science as a data source for research on scientific and scholarly activity","volume":"1","author":"Birkle","year":"2020","journal-title":"Quantitative Science Studies"},{"issue":"2","key":"2022041221313634400_bib8","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"385","DOI":"10.1007\/s11192-008-2070-3","article-title":"Differentiating, describing, and visualizing scientific space: A novel approach to the analysis of published scientific abstracts","volume":"80","author":"Blatt","year":"2009","journal-title":"Scientometrics"},{"issue":"3","key":"2022041221313634400_bib9","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"2249","DOI":"10.1007\/s11192-021-03862-w","article-title":"Comparison of self-citation patterns in WoS and Scopus databases based on national scientific production in Slovenia (1996\u20132020)","volume":"126","author":"Budimir","year":"2021","journal-title":"Scientometrics"},{"key":"2022041221313634400_bib10","volume-title":"Web of Science platform: Web of Science: Summary of Coverage","author":"Clarivate","year":"2021"},{"issue":"12","key":"2022041221313634400_bib11","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1759","DOI":"10.1021\/ja02245a002","article-title":"Volumetric determination of reducing sugars. 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