By now, we’ve all figured iPhone is a device capable enough for business use. How about science? Elsevier — which is the publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services — thinks it can be used by scientists just as well. Hence they’ve launched Scopus Alerts (Lite), providing researchers with mobile access to the searching and alerting features of Scopus, the world’s largest abstract and citation database.
Using the new application, users can find abstracts and reference information from the Scopus database, which covers 18,000 journals produced by more than 5,000 publishers worldwide. In other words, Scopus Alerts (Lite) is designed to help eliminate the need for scientists to seek out a computer when seeking quality research data.
You can create search and citation alerts, and once you find the ones you need, save them to favorites along with notes. If someone you know needs that data, you can also share the results via email and Twitter.
Finally, Elsevier said Scopus Alerts (Lite) is only their first iPhone application with more to come. A ScienceDirect app is in development as we speak, and should be available over the summer.
Scopus Alerts (Lite) [iTunes link]