Conducting qualitative scientometric researches requires the researcher to use reliable sources of bibliographic data and tools.  To establish the exact number of publications, scientific citations, publications, author, journal, or institution, it is necessary to correctly identify the documents contained in the lists of used literature of various scientific publications. 

The creation of appropriate tools is a complex technical task that has led to the commercialization of such projects, and the most famous examples of such products are selected databases which are available on the Web of Science platform and abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature Scopus. 

The compliers of the mentioned authoritative abstract databases adhere to transparent criteria for selection of scientific publications and conduct regular monitoring of their quality in order to avoid the inclusion of low-cost and non-scientific publications. 

In addition to commercial scientometric tools, there are alternative products that are available to users without a subscription, however, these tools have their own characteristics and limitations in use (such as opacity of database content, or vulnerability to manipulation).

Also, support for the Initiative for Open Citations is now growing rapidly in the world- collaboration between research publishers, researchers and other stakeholders to facilitate the unrestricted availability of citation data in the scientific literature. 

Note that the term «scientometric databases» occurs, as a rule, only in domestic regulations, instead, in the English-language scientific literature uses the term «citation databases».