A number of survey respondents suggested adding abbreviated forms of journal titles to the database.

Abbreviated forms of titles are not used in the TUG Ejournals database for the following reasons:

• Title abbreviations are not standard. The abbreviation for a particular title in one database/index may not exactly the same as that used in another index. Abbreviated titles found in some catalogue records may well be different from those used in a given database/index
• Many electronic databases/indexes now provide the full title for each journal in their citations
• Considerable extra work would be involved in adding all possible abbreviated titles for each journal. This would slow down the rate at which we can add new titles to the database

Given the first two reasons, we are not sure that abbreviated titles would prove useful enough to justify the time and effort required to add them. However, we will keep this request in mind as we are examining our alternatives in redesigning the database. It may be possible to find an efficient, cost-effective method of adding abbreviated titles.