Displaying content of scientific journals: A co-heading analysis

A co-heading analysis is proposed for representing the subject content of scientific journals. It is based on the subject headings assigned to documents before their input in bibliographic databases. The method utilizes specifically the co-appearance of headings in the document records to display the subject scope of a given journal not only by the topics covered but by their relationships as well. This analysis is applied in superconductivity for displaying the content of some physics journals using data from 1984 Physics Abstracts. The results (in the form of inclusion maps) could help information scientists and library staff in evaluating and selecting appropriate journals.