Australian Public Affairs Information Service
Selection Guidelines
Selection of articles for indexing in APAIS will depend on whether the item is a comprehensively or selectively indexed journal, newspaper, monograph or a conference proceeding. Inclusions and exclusions are specified below for each of these categories of material. The selection guidelines that follow are also applicable to Australian Public Affairs-Full Text, APAIS-Health, APAIS-ATSIS and APAIS on ATSI ROM, AUSTROM and AUSThealth.
Comprehensively indexed journals (i.e. journals indexed in depth)
Inclusions
- All articles, whether they relate to Australia or not, of one page or more in length regardless of subject, unless they are specifically excluded (see below).
- Editorials and letters, if they constitute substantial articles.
- Guest editorials
- Substantial biographies and obituaries if there is discussion or description of the person's work or contribution to their field
- Lengthy book reviews or book review articles, which include worthwhile discussion of the subject, covered.
Exclusions
- Articles less than one page in length, except where the item is of considerable value
- Brief biographical notes
- Editorials comprising brief comments on the contents of an issue
- Ephemeral material, administrative reports or institutional matters
- Articles about committee matters or organisation detail
- Conference summaries or commentaries about a conference
- Law case summaries and reports
- 'News' type articles
- Press statements
- Recipes
- Motoring and travel/leisure columns
- Short book, film, theatre or exhibition reviews
- Brief book reviews
- Extracts from books
- Poetry, short stories
- Advertisements
Selectively indexed journals
Inclusions
- Articles about Australia one or more pages in length, unless they are specifically excluded (see below).
- Editorials and letters, if they constitute substantial articles.
- Guest editorials
- Substantial biographies and obituaries if there is discussion or description of the person's work or contribution to their field
- Lengthy book reviews or book review articles, which include worthwhile discussion of the subject, covered.
Exclusions
- Articles indexed by other indexing services such as AGIS, Australian Education Index
- Articles less than one page in length, except where the item is of considerable value
- Brief biographical notes
- Editorials which 'editorialise' and editorial comment
- Ephemeral material, administrative reports or institutional matters
- Articles about committee matters or organisation detail
- Conference summaries or commentaries about a conference
- Law case summaries and reports
- 'News' type articles
- Press statements
- Recipes
- Motoring and travel/leisure columns
- Short book, film, theatre or exhibition reviews
- Brief book reviews
- Reprints of articles
- Extracts from books
- Poetry, short stories
- Advertisements
Newspapers
Inclusions
- Feature articles over half a standard newspaper sized sheet in length, except where the article is of considerable value
- Feature articles
Exclusions
- Day to day news articles
- Articles by columnists
- Biographical articles
Monographs and conference proceedings
Inclusions
- Chapters or papers about Australia whose subject and authorship would not be adequately covered by subject headings assigned to the whole book.
Exclusions
- Post secondary textbooks
- Chapters wholly written by one author or a set of authors
- Chapters which are closely related in subject
