Bibliometrics for Arts & Humanities

[Stephen J. Bensman]

Alec,
Before you get involved with using tools like Scopus, etc., to evaluate 
the humanities, I think that you have to investigate the basic question of 
why agencies like the US National Research Council rejected using 
publication/citation counts, etc., to evaluate research-doctorate programs 
in the humanities.  You may start by looking at the following Web site:

http://www7.nationalacademies.org/resdoc/index.html

I would also advise you to investigate why the Institute for Scientific 
Information did not develop a JCR for the Arts & Humanities Citation 
Index.  Perhaps you should go to the Web site below to read what Eugene 
Garfield wrote about citations in the humanities:

http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/

There appear to be major problems with using such counts for the 
humanities. One problem that I can think of is that the humanities are 
spread over time, geography, and culture to a much greater extent than the 
sciences and social sciences.  Therefore, humanists tend to work in 
temporal/cultural pockets isolated from each other, making comparisons 
much more difficult due to the differing variables affecting these pockets.

Stephen J. Bensman
LSU Libraries
Lousiana State University
Baton Rouge, LA 70803
USA