Deciphering Journal Abbreviations with JAbbr

Abstract

JAbbr is an online tool developed at Cornell University to help users decipher journal title abbreviations. This article discusses why these abbreviations are so problematic, and how traditional tools are often insufficient, and then describes the novel approach used by JAbbr. Given an abbreviation, JAbbr creates a regular expression for fuzzy matching, tests it against a list of serial titles extracted from the library catalog, and returns a list of possible matches to the user. JAbbr is available as a web site and as a web service.