"Fracking" vs. "Hydraulic Fracturing:" A Review of Search Terms

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	Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship
	      Spring 2014
     
	DOI:10.5062/F47H1GHB



      

      "Fracking" vs. "Hydraulic Fracturing:" A Review of Search Terms
    Meredith Ayers
  Science Librarian 
  Northern Illinois University 
  DeKalb, Illinois
mayers@niu.edu
    Abstract
  The increased debate over the use of hydraulic fracturing to access natural gas found in low permeability shales has brought this well established method of retrieval to the attention of the public at large.  Whereas scientific literature uses the term hydraulic fracturing, the media and general public often use the term fracking. Researchers unfamiliar with the scientific term may miss out on valuable information and research articles when searching indexes and databases using the term fracking. This article examines the differences in research outcomes when using the two terms, and provides an analysis of the source types found in each database.
    Introduction 
    Hydraulic fracturing is a method by which fluid under high pressure is injected into a well to fracture the surrounding rock and open up fissures to extract the natural gas within. For more background and information about the process and a review of the literature, the author recommends reading Bierman et al. (2011). Although a recent increase in media coverage concerning hydraulic fracturing may cause the general public to perceive the process as new, hydraulic fracturing was first conducted in 1947 (Howard and Fast 1970; Veatch et al. 1989). Recent developments in horizontal drilling and the increased production of gas from unconventional sources have brought the topic to the public's attention. The term fracking to describe hydraulic fracturing has been popularized by the new wave of media attention and is commonly used in public discourse. 
    Since library databases have been indexing articles under the subject heading of hydraulic fracturing for over 60 years, library users searching for hydraulic fracturing may miss many relevant resources if using only the nickname fracking. This article examines the use of both terms for searching in commercial databases. 
    Methods and Data
    To examine the difference between using the terms fracking and hydraulic fracturing in database searches, a keyword search was performed in 18 scientific, technical, and general databases. This is not a list of all possible relevant databases. Rather, these are the ones to which the author has access via institutional subscriptions. There are other databases and web sites not mentioned that are suitable for this kind of research such as Reaxys (Elsevier), Toxnet, and Petroleum Abstracts (TULSA). The keyword searches, when possible, were broken down by format or to the sources types available in each database. A subject search was then performed in the same 18 databases used for the keyword search. The author limited the search to the subject fields of the database where applicable.
    Table 1 lists the results of a keyword search performed in 18 databases. With the exception of LexisNexis Academic, all the databases produced more information using the keyword phrase hydraulic fracturing than using the word fracking. LexisNexis Academic is the only database that produces nearly equal hits for fracking and hydraulic fracturing. This is probably due to LexisNexis indexing more non-academic literature than the other databases.
    Table 1: Results of Keyword Searches in Various Databases (January 2014).
    	Database 	# Hits for
Fracking
	# Hits for
Hydraulic Fracturing

	Academic Search Premier (Ebscohost)	1,557
	1,742

	ArticleFirst (OCLC)	44
	399

	ASCE American Society of Civil Engineers	4
	109

	Biosis Previews (Thomson Reuters)	13
	418

	Business Source Complete (Ebscohost)	1,165
	1,278

	Compendex (Engineering Village)	97
	13,053

	Current Contents Connect(Thomson Reuters)	43
	1,131

	EconLit (Ebscohost)	6
	13

	GeoRef (Ebscohost)	39
	5,806

	GPO Monthly Catalog (OCLC)	0
	105

	GreenFILE (Ebscohost)	299
	325

	IEEE Xplore	4
	82

	Inspec (Ovid)	21
	568

	LexisNexis Academic	997
	995

	PapersFirst (OCLC)	5
	690

	SciFinder Scholar 	142
	2,793

	Web of Science (Thomson Reuters)	133
	4,875

	WorldCat (OCLC)	376
	3,393



    Table 1 also indicates which databases may be the best for looking up literature related to hydraulic fracturing. For example, Compendex and GeoRef with the greatest number of hits, suggest that either one of these databases would be a good place for a user to start looking. Based on the scholarly nature of the literature indexed, Compendex would be best for engineering aspects and GeoRef would be best for geological aspects. Also note that Compendex and GeoRef only found 97 and 39 articles, respectively, for "fracking," indicating that "hydraulic fracturing" is clearly the preferred term. For the non-scientist, Academic Search Premier, with its large pool of both scientific and general resources, may be the best place to start searching.
    The breakdown of the keyword search by format was not possible in Article First and Paper First since they each contain one format, peer-reviewed articles and newspaper articles respectively. All 105 hits in the GPO Monthly Catalog are classified generally as books. The breakdown for the remaining databases can be seen in Table 2.
    Table 2: Breakdown of formats for the database keyword searches.
     	Source Type 	Database	# entries using Fracking 	# entries using Hydraulic Fracturing

	Academic Journal	Academic Search Premier (Ebscohost)	622
	830

	Business Source Complete (Ebscohost	82
	103

	EconLit (Ebscohost)	5
	9

	GeoRef (Ebscohost)	38
	4,559

	GreenFILE (Ebscohost)	68
	101

	Archival	WorldCat (OCLC)
	0
	15

	Article or Articles
	Biosis Previews (Thomson Reuters)	10
	364

	Current Contents Connect(Thomson Reuters)	15
	1,065

	Web of Science (Thomson Reuters)	51
	4,136

	WorldCat (OCLC)	10
	42

	Article in Press
	Compendex (Engineering Village)	0
	56

	Book or Books
	ASCE American Society of Civil Engineers	0
	3

	Biosis Previews (Thomson Reuters)	0
	7

	EconLit (Ebscohost)	0
	1

	GeoRef (Ebscohost)	1
	700

	GreenFILE (Ebscohost)	0
	1

	IEEE Xplore	0
	1

	SciFinder Scholar	0
	1

	WorldCat (OCLC)	152
	1,853

	Book (Monograph) Chapter
	Biosis Previews (Thomson Reuters)	0
	16

	Compendex (Engineering Village)	0
	187

	Web of Science (Thomson Reuters)	0
	2

	Book Reviews
	GreenFILE (Ebscohost)	2
	1

	Web of Science (Thomson Reuters)	3
	0

	Business Opportunities
	LexisNexis Academic
	0
	2

	Commentary
	SciFinder Scholar
	1
	4

	Company Directories & Profiles
	LexisNexis Academic
	0
	19

	Computer
	WorldCat (OCLC)
	2
	23

	Conference
	SciFinder Scholar
	17
	145

	Conference Article
	Compendex (Engineering Village)
	25
	5,967

	Conference Paper(s)
	GeoRef (Ebscohost)
	28
	2,866

	Inspec (Ovid)
	1
	109

	Conference Proceedings
	ASCE American Society of Civil Engineers
	1
	54

	Compendex (Engineering Village)
	0
	328

	Inspec (Ovid)
	0
	8

	Conference Publications
	IEEE Xplore
	0
	71

	Correction
	Current Contents Connect(Thomson Reuters)
	0
	2

	Web of Science (Thomson Reuters)
	1
	5

	Discussion
	Web of Science (Thomson Reuters)
	0
	20

	Dissertation
	SciFinder Scholar
	0
	44

	GeoRef (Ebscohost)
	0
	248

	Editorial (Material)
	Current Contents Connect(Thomson Reuters)
	15
	5

	SciFinder Scholar
	2
	1

	Web of Science (Thomson Reuters)
	24
	37

	Historical
	SciFinder Scholar
	0
	1

	Industry Directories & Profiles
	LexisNexis Academic
	0
	19

	Industry Profiles
	Business Source Complete (Ebscohost)
	3
	3

	Industry Trade Press
	LexisNexis Academic
	1
	25

	Internet
	WorldCat (OCLC)
	158
	1,375

	Journal(s) (Article/Paper)
	ASCE American Society of Civil Engineers
	1
	49

	Compendex (Engineering Village)
	72
	5,827

	Inspec (Ovid)
	20
	451

	SciFinder Scholar
	66
	1,237

	Journal & Magazine
	IEEE Xplore
	4
	10

	LexisNexis Academic
	6
	25

	Law Reviews & Journals
	LexisNexis Academic
	11
	51

	Legal News
	LexisNexis Academic
	4
	15

	Letter
	Biosis Previews (Thomson Reuters)
	0
	8

	Current Contents Connect(Thomson Reuters)
	0
	6

	SciFinder Scholar
	2
	9

	Web of Science (Thomson Reuters)
	6
	15

	Magazines
	Academic Search Premier (Ebscohost)
	457
	448

	ASCE American Society of Civil Engineers
	2
	2

	Business Source Complete (Ebscohost)
	476
	466

	GreenFILE (Ebscohost)
	122
	120

	Market Research Reports
	Business Source Complete (Ebscohost)
	3
	7

	Meeting (Abstract)
	Biosis Previews (Thomson Reuters)
	3
	36

	Web of Science (Thomson Reuters)
	4
	95

	Memoirs
	ASCE American Society of Civil Engineers
	0
	1

	News (Item)
	Current Contents Connect(Thomson Reuters)
	13
	0

	LexisNexis Academic
	11
	0

	Web of Science (Thomson Reuters)
	38
	8

	Newsletters
	LexisNexis Academic
	1
	3

	Newspapers
	Academic Search Premier (Ebscohost)
	307
	293

	Business Source Complete (Ebscohost)
	184
	155

	LexisNexis Academic
	958
	820

	News Transcripts
	LexisNexis Academic
	1
	2

	Newswires & Press Releases
	LexisNexis Academic
	5
	26

	Note
	Web of Science (Thomson Reuters)
	0
	29

	Patent
	Biosis Previews (Thomson Reuters)
	0
	7

	SciFinder Scholar
	46
	1,332

	Preprint
	SciFinder Scholar
	0
	3

	Proceeding Paper
	Web of Science (Thomson Reuters)
	3
	825

	Product Reviews
	Business Source Complete (Ebscohost)
	5
	14

	Reprint
	Current Contents Connect(Thomson Reuters)
	0
	1

	Web of Science (Thomson Reuters)
	0
	1

	Reports
	GeoRef (Ebscohost)
	0
	301

	SciFinder Scholar
	0
	34

	Review(s)
	Academic Search Premier (Ebscohost)
	14 
	12

	Current Contents Connect(Thomson Reuters)
	0
	52

	SciFinder Scholar
	5
	112

	Web of Science (Thomson Reuters)
	3
	118

	Serial
	WorldCat (OCLC)
	1
	19

	Sound
	WorldCat (OCLC)
	12
	2

	Trade Publications
	Academic Search Premier (Ebscohost)
	157
	159

	Business Source Complete (Ebscohost)
	411
	525

	Visual
	WorldCat (OCLC)
	40
	63

	Web-based Publications
	LexisNexis Academic
	47
	60

	Working Paper
	EconLit (Ebscohost)
	1
	3



     Analysis of Table 2 shows that there is greater use of the term fracking in magazines and newspapers.  Table 2 also shows some use of the term fracking in journals, trade publications, reports, patents proceedings and the Internet.  Table 2 also shows that, with the exception of newspapers and magazines, hydraulic fracturing is the preferred term in nearly all other formats including Internet sources and web-based publications. 
    Next, the author examined the use of subject headings when searching for information on hydraulic fracturing/fracking. Not all of the databases have the option to search by subject headings. Where subject searching was not available, as in Compendex and IEEE Xplore, controlled vocabulary searches were conducted instead. Table 3 shows the results, which clearly indicate that fracking is not used as a subject term in the scientific or technical databases. 
    In these databases, hydraulic fracturing is used as a subject heading and some of the records viewed during keyword searches for fracking show that hydraulic fracturing was included in the list of subject terms found for the record. The reverse was not true for items found using hydraulic fracturing as a keyword search. The majority of the databases use the term hydraulic fracturing as a subject heading. An inverted version of the term is used for indexing in SciFinder Scholar, and it sometimes appears in the author-supplied keywords field in databases maintained by Thomson Reuters. Fracking as a subject term did pull up one related result in PapersFirst and 37 related results in WorldCat, indicating that some of the general databases have started adding the term in the subject field.
    Table 3: Results of Subject Searching (January 2014).
     	Databases 	Fracking
	Hydraulic Fracturing

	Academic Search Premier
	0
	1,442

	ArticleFirst
	N/A
	N/A

	ASCE American Society of Civil Engineers
	0
	51

	Biosis Previews
	N/A
	N/A

	Business Source Complete
	0
	1,102

	Compendex
	0
	5,466

	Current Contents
	N/A
	N/A

	EconLit
	0
	2

	GeoRef
	0
	5,414

	GPO Monthly Catalog
	0
	93

	GreenFILE
	0
	267

	IEEE Xplore (IEEE terms)
	0
	0

	Inspec
	0
	0

	LexisNexis Academic
	N/A
	N/A

	PapersFirst
	1
	161

	SciFinder Scholar
	N/A
	N/A

	Web of Science
	N/A
	N/A

	WorldCat
	37
	2,193



    Out of the 18 databases searched, eight had controlled vocabulary or made use of a subject thesaurus. Of these eight, five used subject terms and three used thesauri. Three of the eight did not have subject or thesaurus terms for fracking or hydraulic fracturing. Table 4 lists the database and other terms available for searching on hydraulic fracturing. Though SciFinder Scholar allows the input of CA concept headings, it does not have a searchable thesaurus or subject headings. It does have a Categorize function.  The Categorize function will, for any search set of 15,000 results or less, retrieve and collate the category and index terms for each record in the results set. The user can then select the Category heading, Category, and Index terms of interest in that category to quickly narrow down the search results.
    Table 4: Subject and thesaurus terms for select databases.
     	    Databases 	Subject or Thesaurus terms

	Academic Search Premier 
	Fracturing fluids, Hydraulic fracturing, Hydraulic fracturing--Equipment & Supplies, Hydraulic fracturing--Lawsuits & Claims

	ASCE
	 Hydraulic fracturing

	Compendex
	Fracking fluids, Fracturing (oil wells), Fracturing fluids, Hydraulic fracturing, Oil wells--hydraulic fracturing, Oil wells--fracturing, Oil wells--fracturing fluids, Proppants, Water  wells--hydraulic fracturing.

	GeoRef
	 Hydraulic fracturing

	Inspec
	Natural gas technology and/or oil technology



      Conclusion
      The databases to use will depend on the needs of the user. Those looking for more scholarly articles will probably find the scientific databases to be more useful, while someone looking for more popular articles or some background information will probably want to start with the general databases. 
    Compendex and GeoRef are the best databases to use when looking for scientific or technical information on hydraulic fracturing based on number of hits alone.  Academic Search Premier may be a useful starting point for the researcher who is not sure which aspect of the topic to research. Business Source Complete is ideal for users looking for information on the companies that perform hydraulic fracturing.  GreenFILE, even though it does not produce a large number of hits, would be an appropriate place to look for aspects of hydraulic fracturing that affect the environment.  Legal information on regulations and court cases can be obtained from LexisNexis Academic. SciFinder Scholar or any other chemistry-related database would be good to use when learning about the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing fluid and why they were chosen. 
    The term fracking is not the best term to use when looking for scholarly research; hydraulic fracturing is the preferred subject term to use when searching in most databases. Knowing this will be helpful to students and members of the general public interested in learning more about the process. This knowledge would also be useful to librarians assisting patrons with finding information on hydraulic fracturing. The format break down of the keyword search shows that while fracking is commonly used in newspapers and magazines it is seldom used as a subject or controlled vocabulary term. Information of hydraulic fracturing is readily available for those who know where and how to find it. 
    References
    Bierman, James, Kulp, Christina, and Foote, Jody Bales. 2011. Reviews of science for science librarians: hydraulic fracturing: geological, engineering, and environmental literature. Science & Technology Libraries (30:4): 326-42.
    Howard, G.C. and Fast, C.R. 1970. Hydraulic Fracturing. New York: Henry L. Doherty Memorial Fund of AIME, Society of Petroleum Engineers of AIME.
    Veatch, Ralph W., Moschovidis, Zissis A., and Fast, Robert C. 1989. An overview of hydraulic fracturing. In: Gidley, John L., editor. Recent Advances in Hydraulic Fracturing. Richardson, TX: Henry L. Doherty Memorial Fund of AIME, Society of Petroleum Engineers of AIME. p. 1-146.
     

  

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