Recently there have been a couple of postings on Medlib-l and SERIALST regarding Scopus. Most of these postings are asking for other librarian's opinions on Scopus, especially librarian who currently have Web of Science. So I thought I would post a few articles comparing Scopus and WoS.

• Louise F Deis, Princeton, and David Goodman, Long Island University, published a comparative review of Web of Science (2004 version) and Scopus, in the Charleston Advisor v6 n3 January 2005 issue.
  (brief excerpt)
  "Each library will have to decide if it can afford to add Scopus. This is a case of elastic demand: if the price were half, the sales might be three or four times as many. One possible way of paying for it, that is, by ceasing to subscribe to more specialized indexes in areas well-covered by Scopus, has been discussed above. The likely alternative is to discontinue other material. This leads to an often-discussed question: which is more important, the journals or the indexes?"
  
• One helpful post directed people to an article in Library Journal, E-Views and Reviews: Scopus vs. Web of Science By Cheryl LaGuardia — January 15, 2005
  (brief excerpt)
  "Scopus is a powerhouse for the sciences and seems to do a creditable job selectively in the social sciences. It's more suited for "subject" searching than Web of Science, and the content is more up-to-date. It includes web references but doesn't "reach back" as far as Web of Science (1966 for Scopus and 1945 for Web of Science), although for the sciences that may not be greatly important. Scopus rates a 9.75, with just one-quarter point off for the sensory overloading results screens."
  
• Peter Jacso writes a free monthly column, Peter's Digital Ready Reference Shelf, and wrote a very in depth review of Scopus (September 2004).
  (brief excerpt)
  "One significant difference between the WoS and Scopus records is that the latter has abstracts for a larger percentage of their records than the former. The reason for this is that ISI does not create abstracts, it only includes them if they are present in the original documents. On the other hand, the Elsevier abstracting/indexing database records are enhanced by abstracts for many (but not all) of the articles that do not have abstracts in the source journal.
  This presence of abstracts may significantly increase the recall when searching by word, and also helps users in selecting the most pertinent items from the results list. It is another question that during my testing of a small subset I found that the quality of abstracts and the indexing terms assigned by Compendex left much to be desired."
  
• SCOPUS: Profusion and Confusion By Susan Fingerman in Online v. 29 no. 2 (March/April 2005). While this article is more recent it is not a direct comparison of WoS and Scopus, but I found it to be very informative so that is why it is included on this list.
  (Abstract)
  "SCOPUS is Elsevier's new search product that offers access to 14,000 peer-reviewed journal titles. The search product can retrieve a lot of information and offers plenty of options. However, following too many of the product's multiple refinements can lead to confusion. Pricing, which is based on institution size, ranges from $20,000 to $120,000 per year."