Overview

Zentralblatt für Mathematik und ihre Grenzgebiete was founded in 1931 by O. Neugebauer and is today the longest-term running abstracting and reviewing service in the field of mathematics. It covers the entire spectrum of mathematics incl. applications in computer science, mechanics, physics, etc. Publications are classified according to the Mathematics Subject Classification (MSC).
It contains references to the worldwide literature drawn from a total of more than 3500 journals and 1100 serials, from conference proceedings, collections of papers and books.

In the course of the European extension the service was renamed to Zentralblatt MATH, to shorten the lengthy German title. Zentralblatt MATH publishes about 120,000 abstracts and reviews per year produced by more than 10,000 experts in mathematics; the reviews are mainly written in English, in exceptional cases French and German is accepted. Zentralblatt MATH is edited by the European Mathematical Society (EMS), Fachinformationszentrum (FIZ) Karlsruhe, and the Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften and published in cooperation with Springer-Verlag.

The editorial work is mainly carried out in the central office in Berlin (Department of Mathematics and Computer Science of FIZ Karlsruhe) in cooperation with the French partner Cellule Math Doc (Grenoble) and 12 European editorial offices.

Zentralblatt MATH stands equally for the conventional printed service as well as for the electronic offers. The central offer consists in the online database via the WorldWideWeb, having more than 10 international mirrors and several national mirrors. In addition a CD-ROM version for local server installations and for off-line use is available.

Zentralblatt MATH database contains more than 3 mio. records - and since 2003 also includes the Jahrbuch über die Fortschritte der Mathematik (JFM) (1868-1942). The online database is updated daily, the printed service of Zentralblatt MATH is published in 25 vols annually, and the CD-ROM is published semi-annually. An annual CD-ROM is produced for all subscribers of the online service.

Searches are possible on a variety of fields: authors, titles, review texts, classification, basic index, source, language etc. For convenience under Simple Search a one-line search interface is offered where information from all fields can be retrieved.

For more advanced users Advanced Search offers variable predefined search fields where searches can be formulated in logical combinations. The search can be made in a Command Search.

The information is available in AMSTeX source code, but tools for a convenient formula display are available. Download of the hit list at the users site is possible, and links to the full text of the corresponding article are included if the information is available electronically.

An additional option is the document delivery service by which customers can order full text versions of the articles in question. Buttons for such services are offered in the result pages. Document delivery can be arranged by these services electronically or by sending copies by ordinary mail at reasonable rates.