ABS:Glanzel, Article refs, sciences

[Gretchen Whitney]

FN ISI Export Format
PT J
AU Glanzel, W
   Schoepflin, U
TI A bibliometric study of reference literature in the sciences
   and social sciences
SO INFORMATION PROCESSING & MANAGEMENT
LA English
C1 Max Planck Inst Hist Sci, Wilhelmstr 44, D-10117 Berlin,
   Germany.
   Max Planck Inst Hist Sci, D-10117 Berlin, Germany.
   RASCI, D-15236 Frankfurt, Germany.
ID SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE; SCIENTOMETRIC WEIGHT; 50 NATIONS; AREAS
AB In earlier papers the authors focused on differences in the
   ageing of journal literature in science and the social
   sciences. It was shown that for several fields and topics
   bibliometric standard indicators based on journal articles need
   to be modified in order to provide valid results. In fields
   where monographs, books or reports are important means of
scientific information. standard models of scientific
   communication are not reflected by journal literature alone. To
   identify fields where the role of non-serial literature is
   considerable or critical in terms of bibliometric standard
   methods. the totality of the bibliographic citations indexed in
   the 1993 annual cumulation of the SCI and SSCI databases, have
   been processed. The analysis is based on three indicators, the
   percentage of references to serials, the mean references age,
   and the mean reference rate. Applications of these measures at
   different levels of aggregation (i.e., to journals in selected
   science and social science fields) lead to the following
   conclusions. 1. The percentage of references to serials proved
   to be a sensitive measure to characterise typical differences
   in the communication behaviour between the sciences and the
   social sciences.'. However, there is an overlap zone which
   includes fields like mathematics, technology oriented science,
   and some social science areas. 3, In certain social sciences
   part of the information seems even to be originated in non-
   scientific sources: references to non-serials do not always
   represent monographs, preprints or reports. Consequently, the
   model of information transfer from scientific literature to
   scientific (journal) literature assumed by standard
   bibliometrics requires substantial revision before valid
   results can be expected through its application to social
   science areas. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights
   reserved.
BP 31
EP 44
PG 14
JI Inf. Process. Manage.
PY 1999
PD JAN
VL 35
IS 1

Reprinted with permission, ISI

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Gretchen Whitney, PhD                                     tel 423.974.7919
School of Information Sciences                            fax 423.974.4967
University of Tennessee, Knoxville TN 37996 USA           gwhitney at utk.edu
http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/