feasibility of a book citation index

[Ronald Rousseau]

Feasibility of a book citation index
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In relation to the 'Personal Citation' concept, I wonder if there is nowadays
any practical reason why a book citation index (= index of book references) is
not feasible.

When the SCI started almost all references had to be retyped by hand. Moreover,
the SCI was basically meant as a retrieval tool. This were good reasons for not
including books (at least not on a large scale).

The situation, however, has changed considerably nowadays. If publishers are
willing to co-operate (and why shouldn't they: it is a form of promotion of
their activities) I think a book citation index is quite feasible.

Such an index would be very interesting for bibliometric studies. Indeed, it is
clear that the purpose of book references differs (or at least may differ) from
that of journal references. Of course, a classification in types of books
should be made: research monographs are quite different from undergraduate
textbooks ; review type of books are different from conference proceedings, and
so on. Again, the possibilities for research are legion.

Who takes the challenge?

Ronald Rousseau
Belgium