FAQ about the LexisNexis Statistical Redesign

Although, with the addition of PowerTables™ the look of Statistical and the functionality will change dramatically, the Abstract and Indexing (A&I) and accompanying full text, which are the foundation of the product, are essentially unchanged. There are, however, some differences that may confuse users who are used to looking at the abstracts as they currently exist on the system.

Below are some questions that may arise as customers review the A&I on Statistical and compare it with the current service. The purpose is to explain what we did and why we did it; naturally, the feedback of customers is appreciated and expected as they review the changes.

Q. I have noticed that within a date restricted search. I sometimes retrieve documents that are not within the date range.

A. This is a data-specific problem, and not one associated with the redesign you may notice this in the service now. This is caused by the variety of data that is stored within the service. Dates are assigned to records based on many factors, including publication date of the source, issue date of the source, and publication date of the ASI, SRI or IIS edition. All of these dates are date searchable, but not all dates are displayed. We will be working to address our date issues throughout the fall.

Q. There is information missing in the citation lists and the abstracts!

A. Research of the library market has revealed that many end users become lost in the barrage of information that Statistical provides. We made an effort to streamline the citation lists and the abstracts to provide the information that was seen as important to the librarians that we interviewed.

Q. Why is the bibliographic data split into two sections? Some is at the top of the page, and the rest is after the abstract or analytics!

A. Placing all of the bibliographic information at the top of the page pushed the Abstract very far down the page, and required the user to "hunt" for it. We placed the bibliographic data that the librarians in our study felt was essential at the top of the page, and placed the additional bibliographic information at the bottom.

Q. The link to "locate a copy of this publication at your library" no longer appears!

A. Librarians in our study found this link to be extremely limited. They expressed a greater wish to bring the abstract to the top of the page as far as possible. The elimination of this link allowed for that while we explore how to create a better functionality for locating the sources.

Q. I notice that I have access to full text where I previously did not.

A. The concept of subject modules has been eliminated from Statistical. All full text that could previously have been viewed only by subscribers to subject modules will be available throughout the associated A&I purchase.