ABS: Tsay, Library journal use and citation age in medical science

[Gretchen Whitney]

Notes: Author's email address is: tsay at mail.tku.edu.tw

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PT J
AU Tsay, MY
TI Library journal use and citation age in medical science
SO JOURNAL OF DOCUMENTATION
NR 19
C1 Tamkang Univ, Dept Educ Media & Lib Sci, Tamsui, Taiwan.
   Tamkang Univ, Dept Educ Media & Lib Sci, Tamsui, Taiwan.
ID OBSOLESCENCE; TIME
AB This study explores the in-house use age distribution of
   journals in the library of Veterans General Hospital, Taipei,
   Taiwan, their citation age distribution and the difference
   between them. The use study employed the sweep method and the
   study period lasted for six months. The citation age of each
   journal in this study was based on the data listed in the
   Science Citation Index, Journal Citation Reports, 1993. The
   results of this study illustrate that the use age distribution
   for the mean of all the journals is an exponentially decaying
   curve. On the other hand, the citation age distributions show a
   sharp initial rise from age one to three or four years and then
   fall off in a sort of exponential decay; and the age of maximum
   citation is typically three years. About 80% of uses are
   attributed to journals less than ten years old, while these
   journals contribute about 70% of total citations. The
   Kolmogorov-Smirnov two-sample test indicates that the use age
   distribution does not fit the citation age distribution.
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BP 543
EP 555
PG 13
JI J. Doc.
PY 1999
PD DEC
VL 55
IS 5
GA 264RX
RP Tsay MY
   Tamkang Univ, Dept Educ Media & Lib Sci, Tamsui, Taiwan.
J9 J DOC
UT ISI:000084196200004
ER

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