On Thu, 23 Oct 1997, Mary Page wrote:

> This is somewhat like asking howmany angels can dance on the head of a
> pin, but, I'll just forge ahead anyway!
>
> Does anyone know how many journals there are in the world?  Specifically,
> I've been asked to find out (roughly) how many science journals exist.
> Does anyone have any good ideas on how I might go about compiling such a
> figure?
>
> I thought first of some indexes, such as Science Citation Index.  But
> they are fairly selective in what they cover, as are most of the science
> indexes I looked at.
>
> Any and all suggestions gratefully accepted!  thanks,

You really have to define your interest.  There are many periodicals
classified by Ulrich's as "science" which carry news and no primary
research letters, or review articles. I find reference to series received
by the few remaining quasi-Alexandrian library collections like National
Library of Medicine, Canadian Institute of Science and Technology, etc to
be informative. You can also get access to lists that reveal if
publications such as Popular Science are there and whether they are
counting multiple copies in their statistics.

As databases go, only a few are helpful. CASSI covered over 12,000 sources
in chemistry the last time I asked. Most of them offer only partial
coverage thanks to the unwillingness of universities to pay for
information.  See ELECTRONIC DATABASES to be published soon by
Transaction.

Albert Henderson, Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY
70244.1532@compuserve.com