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Mathematics : MathSciNet

About MathSciNet

MathSciNet indexes and abstracts more than 3,100 periodicals and more than 7,500 books, conference proceedings, theses, dissertations, and technical reports from Mathematical Reviews and Current Mathematical Publications. Materials in the fields of mathematics, statistics, computer science, and related fields are included, in English and other languages.

Searching MathSciNet

MathSciNet allows a user to search for publications, authors, journals, series, or Math Subject Classification (MSC). As of 2023, researchers have the choice of using the old MathSciNet search interface or a new, modern one.

Publication Searching

MathSciNet defaults to publication searching. This mode searches the bibliographic information about journal articles, books, book chapters, proceedings papers, theses, and other individual publications within the database.

Field Codes

Using field codes, search terms can be limited to specific fields such as author, Mathematical Reviews (MR) number, institution name, and DOI. In the modern MathSciNet interface, these can be explored using the Standard, Advanced, and Syntax tabs below the main search box. In the classic interface, they are available as drop-down options preceding each search box.

Author Searching

Each author in MathSciNet is assigned a unique identifier. Author searches can therefore use the researcher's name (surname, first name) or identification number. Names are also linked throughout the database for easy access to full publication lists.

Journal Searching

Journals may be searched by name or ISSN. The search results will provide links to a journal profile that contains information about the publisher, previous names for the journal, its dates of publication, and how it is indexed in the database. It also provides links to the issues, articles, citation history, and RSS feeds that can inform you when new articles from the journal are added.

Finding Connections

In addition to searching the literature, MathSciNet emphasizes the connections between researchers.

Collaboration Distance

MathSciNet defines "collaboration distance" as the shortest distance between two authors, determined by co-authored papers. To find the collaboration distance of any two authors in the database:

  • Use the Free Tools link in MathSciNet
  • Select the Collaboration Distance tab 
  • Enter the authors' names and use the Search button

The use Erdős button allows you to easily find any mathematician's Erdős number.

Author Profile Pages

You can also find information about the connections between mathematicians using an author's MathSciNet profile page. In addition to a link to the Collaboration Distance tool, each profile includes a list of co-authors. This list can be sorted by co-author's name or the number of co-authored publications. The number of shared publications links to a list of those publications.

Author profiles also often include a link to the author's mathematical genealogy from the Mathematics Genealogy Project.

Mathematical Subject Classifications

Mathematical Subject Classification (MSC) is a subject classification scheme for mathematical papers. MSC consists of codes for 63 different mathematical disciplines, with second and third levels for all 63. A typical MSC classification is five characters long, where the first two are numbers representing the mathematical discipline, the third a letter which describes the sub-area of the discipline, and then two more numbers representing the specific problem area or object which is the focus of the work.

For example, 05C78 would be assigned to a paper from combinatorics(05), where the work was done in Graph Theory(C) and focused on graph labeling(78).

Publications indexed in MathSciNet are assigned one or two MSC values by subject area experts when they are added to the database. These classifications can then be used to search for publications in a specific topic area.