authors read national literatures?

Wed Nov 30 16:08:02 EST 2005

To add an empirical dimension to this discussion.  My own study of citation patterns of Polish sociologists (as recorded in 4 Polish sociological journals between 1981 and 1995) shows a steady increase of citations to foreign literature, reaching some 35% in mid 1990s.  Also, we observe a shift from citations to monographs to journals as well as quicker 'pick up' of foreign materials.  In earlier years we have seen citations to Polish translations of foreign monographs, more recently we see a significant increase of citations to foreign-language journal articles.  Predictably, US, UK and Germany provide the bulk of the cited works.

Conversely, a study of SSCI for the same time period has shown a somewhat limited presence/impact of Polish sociology.  Only 0.46% of all SSCI sociology papers were authored by Polish sociologists and analysis of citations received by Polish papers revealed three distinct groups of subject of interest to international sociological community (as represented by SSCI); these were: post-1989 transformation in Poland; social stratification in a socialist society and writings on theory, methodology and history of sociology. (Journal of Info Science v. 24(1))

Berenika M. Webster
School of Information Management
Victoria University of Wellington
Wellington, New Zealand

-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen J. Bensman [mailto:notsjb at LSU.EDU]
Sent: Thursday, 1 December 2005 4:44 a.m.
To: SIGMETRICS at listserv.utk.edu
Subject: Re: [SIGMETRICS] authors read national literatures?

I thought that I would throw in a theoretical perspective from which to
approach the problem of whether authors read mainly their national
literatures.

>From the research I have done, it seems that scientists and scholars
operate within a certain social stratification system and will tend to
read and cite those scientists and scholars dominant within this social
stratification system.  It therefore depends on whether a given field of
study has become globalized and in what form this globalization has taken
place.  If the field has become totally globalized, then the reading and
citation patterns will be international.  If the field has not become
globalized, then the reading and citing patterns will follow the dictates
of some localized stratification system.  I think that as a general
hypothesis you can posit that the more universal the topic, the more
globalized the field.  This would probably be the pattern in the hard
sciences.  However, as you approach the social sciences and humanities,
the patterns will become more national and regional due to a narrowing of
interests.

I am most familiar with this phenomenon in chemistry.  As in many fields.
there seems to be a pattern of globalization through the main US
scientific association--the American Chemical Society.  I have discussed
this matter with persons on the ACS board, and they agree with this.  This
why the Journal of the American Chemical Society is the dominant journal
in the field, because this is where the international elite tend to
publish.  There is also signs of this with ASIST and JASIST, as anybody
who has attended an ASIST conference or looked at the authorship pattern
of JASIST.  In contrast the ALA has remained parochial, and there is
little awareness of IFLA and its journal among American librarians.

Therefore, you are dealing with a very complex issue that is dependent on
a number of very complex variables.  However, I think that if you maintain
this theoretical perspective, you can sort through these variables.  It is
a crucial issue, because I really do not think that European really should
be evaluating themselves with ISI citations, whose patterns are largely
dictated by the social stratification system of the US.  Despite all the
trans-Atlantic hollering, the US is not a European country and every day
is becoming less of one in both values and ethnic composition.

SB
On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 16:22:25 -0800, John McDonald
<jmcdonald at LIBRARY.CALTECH.EDU> wrote:

>Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe):
>http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
>
>Gretchen,  Here's just one recent example:
>
>Schloegl,C & Stock WG (2004) Impact and Relevance of LIS Journals: A
>Scientometric Analysis of International and German-Language LIS
>Journals-Citation Analysis Versus Reader Survey. JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN
>SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 55(13):1155-1168, 2004
>
>"There is not much information exchange between international,
>i.e., English-writing, and German-writing LIS
>authors. German-writing authors cite at least some international
>journals such as JASIST, Online, Digital Libraries,
>LibraryJournal , or Libri (see Figure 1). Authors of the
>English-language LIS periodicals cite their German-writing
>counterpart to such a small extent that the defined threshold
>values were not reached. A similar result was found in a
>study about foreign authorship distribution in JASIST and
>Journal of Documentation (He & Spink, 2002). Accordingly,
>125 authors from the United Kingdom and 110 from Canada
>published articles in JASIST and American Documentation,
>respectively, in the period 1950 to 1999. However, only 25
>authors were from Germany, 6 from Switzerland, and 3 from
>Austria. In the British Journal of Documentation, 128 authors
>were from the United States, but only 8 from Germany,
>3 from Switzerland, and none from Austria. This might raise
>the following question: Are there any invisible borderlines
>between English-speaking information scientists and their
>German-speaking colleagues?"
>
>They also cite a number of related studies that have shown the same
>effect.  I think I would tend to think the reason for the results they
>found is due to language abilities rather than cultural or national
>identities.
>
>
>John McDonald
>Acquisitions Librarian
>California Institute of Technology
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics
>[mailto:SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU] On Behalf Of Eugene Garfield
>Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2005 4:02 PM
>To: SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU
>Subject: Re: [SIGMETRICS] authors read national literatures?
>
>Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe):
>http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
>
>You must make a distinction between scientists and physicians. To lump
>them together is valid. You can tell from citation patterns of the
>literature outside the US that researchers read and cite the US
>literature. I just saw an analysis of citations to Lancet, Nature.
>Science, e.g,. by Chinese journals.
>
>It has often been claimed by Europeans that Americans do not read their
>literature but I have never seen any proof of this. They were studies
>long ago that showed that American physicians did not even cite British
>journals, but again are we talking about research physicians or
>clinicians. The latter have barely enough time to read their own
>journals, whereever they are. However, the wide distribution of JAMA
>worldwide would indicate otherwise. Best wishes Gretchen. Gene Garfield
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics
>[mailto:SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU] On Behalf Of Gretchen Whitney
>Sent: Thursday, November 10, 2005 8:53 PM
>To: SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU
>Subject: [SIGMETRICS] authors read national literatures?
>
>
>Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe):
>http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
>
>greetings all,
>
> I have a vague recollection that a study (or studies) reported, perhaps
>by analysis of lists of references in documents, that scientists
>primarily read their national literatures, and did not stray frequently
>into the literatures of other countries.  Is there any evidence of this?
>Does this sound familiar to anyone?  What might I have read?  This could
>be as old as some studies out of psychology in the 1970s.  I'm doing a
>study of a subset of MEDLINE through DIALOG, and I'd like to be able to
>assert that the values in the CP (country of publication) field reflect
>what scientists in a given country READ, and the values in the CS
>(author affiliation) field reflect what they experiment with and WRITE.
>By analysis of these fields and titles/subjects, this assertion seems to
>be supported because there is consitency in values regarding therapies
>explored/supported/promoted from both fields.
>
>In other words, there is consistency in both that enable me to assert
>that country x is exploring y therapy, as opposed to country w exploring
>z therapy.
>
>Is there literature out there that supports the idea that scientists,
>particularly physicians, read their national literatures predominantly,
>and write in those intellectual domains?
>
>I've already tried Tenopir/King, and it wasn't them.
>
>Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>
>  --gw
>
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>Gretchen Whitney, PhD                                     tel
>865.974.7919
>School of Information Sciences                            fax
>865.974.4967
>University of Tennessee, Knoxville TN 37996 USA gwhitney at utk.edu
>http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/
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>SIGMETRICS:http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
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