A citation database is a form of bibliographic index which provides a record of citations between publications, enabling a user to see which publications have cited which other publications. Such a database will show which authors have cited a publication and how many times an author has been cited.
Citation databases have been developed as a means of evaluating publications, allowing a user to establish citation counts and to check, for example, which publications and authors are the most cited.
Citation analysis and bibliometric indicators have been made possible by such databases. However, citation count in itself should not be taken as a guarantee of quality and there can be many reasons for a particular citation (e.g. negative citations, self-citation).
Citation databases tend to focus on journal articles but may cover other material such as books, conference papers, dissertations or reports. No citation database covers all publications. Note also that some disciplines (e.g. the sciences) are more heavily covered than others (e.g. the arts). Citation databases do not tend to provide a user with full-text access to the publications which have been indexed.
DIT Library subscribes to the following citation databases:
The following may be accessed free of charge: