PHILADELPHIA and LONDON, April 1 /PRNewswire/ --

- 162 New Journals Enrich Current Coverage With Regional Perspective

Thomson Scientific, a leading provider of information solutions to the worldwide research and business communities, today announced that 162 regional social science journals have been added to Web of Science. The newly identified collection contains journals that typically target a regional rather than international audience by approaching subjects from a local perspective or focusing on particular topics of regional interest.

For more than two years, Thomson Scientific has reviewed thousands of regional journals in all areas of science, social science and arts and humanities. Although selection criteria for a regional journal are fundamentally the same as for an international journal, the importance of the regional journal is measured in terms of the specificity of its content rather than in its citation impact. The recently added regional Social Science journals include 49 titles from the Asia-Pacific region and 91 from the European Union.

"As the global distribution of Web of Science expands into virtually every region on earth, the importance of regional scholarship to our emerging regional user community also grows," said Jim Testa, senior director, editorial development and publisher relations at Thomson Scientific. "We hope to be instrumental in expanding the audience for these journals and bringing attention to their scholarship."

Throughout 2008, Thomson Scientific will expand the current collection of journals to include a more diverse coverage of regional literature. All journals added to the Web of Science will go through a rigorous selection process. Regional journals, specifically, must be publishing on time, have English-language bibliographic information (title, abstract, keywords), and cited references must be in the Roman alphabet.

"The quality of each of these newly added journals is on the level the world has come to expect from the Web of Science," said Testa.

For more information, please visit http://scientific.thomson.com/products/wos/.

About Thomson Scientific

Thomson Scientific is a provider of information solutions that assist professionals at every stage of research and development-from discovery to analysis to product development and distribution. Thomson Scientific is part of The Thomson Corporation (www.thomson.com), a global leader in providing essential electronic workflow solutions to business and professional customers. With operational headquarters in Stamford, Conn., Thomson provides value-added information, software tools and applications to professionals in the fields of law, tax, accounting, financial services, scientific research and healthcare. Thomson Scientific information solutions can be found at scientific.thomson.com.

Web site: http://www.scientific.thomson.com

Sue Besaw of Thomson Scientific, +1-215-823-1840, susan.besaw@thomson.com