Papers of interest to SIG-Metrics readers

Eugene Garfield eugene.garfield at THOMSONREUTERS.COM
Sun Apr 15 17:40:15 EDT 2012


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TITLE:          Why and how can "sleeping beauties" be awakened?
                (Article, English)
AUTHOR:         Wang, JC; Ma, FC; Chen, MJ; Rao, YQ
SOURCE:         ELECTRONIC LIBRARY 30 (1). 2012. p.5-18 EMERALD GROUP
                PUBLISHING LIMITED, BINGLEY

SEARCH TERM(S):  GARFIELD E  rauth; PRICE DJD  rauth

KEYWORDS:       Information awakening; Sleeping beauty; Information
                utilization; Prince; Information obsolescence;
                Information; Obsolescence
KEYWORDS+:       SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE; COLLEGE LIBRARIES; RESISTANCE;
                OBSOLESCENCE; DISCOVERIES; KNOWLEDGE; SCIENCE; DATE; WEB

ABSTRACT:       Purpose - "Sleeping beauties" are very common in science,
so this paper aims to uncover the reasons and formulation mechanism of information awakening on a more general level. Based on this, the paper will further propose useful strategies to awaken those "sleeping beauties" earlier.

Design/methodology/approach - Explanation-building of case study is used to develop some models of information awakening and also to uncover different types of reasons for triggering academic information to be awakened.

Findings - Based on the three basic elements of information utilisation, namely, information value, access channel and user needs, the paper summarises several reasons for information awakening: the information value is re-mined because of the relevance among various information; different uses of information are discovered; information availability and visibility are improved; information is placed into the appropriate place; and, with time passing by, demands for the information rise.

Practical implications - The presence of excessive "sleeping beauties" is not only a kind of idleness and waste to knowledge, but also may result in aggravation of information redundancy and increasing cost of storage.
The revelation of its essence and reasons is not only helpful to establish better management mechanism to awaken "sleeping beauties" and thus to maximise their value, but also helpful to distinguish "sleeping beauties" from "pseudo-sleeping beauties" as early as possible, so that all that worthless information can be cleared up without hesitation.

Originality/value - Most existing studies remain on the level of collecting instances and interpreting specific cases, but this paper investigates reasons from a more general level. What is more, current understandings are very one-sided in that they treat information awakening and delayed recognition as the same, so this paper clarifies their differentiation and summarises the reasons comprehensively.

AUTHOR ADDRESS: FC Ma, Wuhan Univ, Ctr Studies Informat Resources, Wuhan
                430072, Peoples R China

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TITLE:          Availability and persistence of web citations in Indian
                LIS literature (Article, English)
AUTHOR:         Kumar, BTS; Raj, KRP
SOURCE:         ELECTRONIC LIBRARY 30 (1). 2012. p.19-32 EMERALD GROUP
                PUBLISHING LIMITED, BINGLEY

SEARCH TERM(S):  CITATION*  item_title

KEYWORDS:       Web citation; Persistence; LIS literature; India; Web
                sites; Information management
KEYWORDS+:       INTERNET CITATIONS; REFERENCES; JOURNALS; ACCESSIBILITY;
                PERMANENCE; DECAY; TIME; LIFE

ABSTRACT:       Purpose - The worldwide web is growing at an enormous
speed and web citations are becoming very common in scholarly publications. However the major problem of web citation is its persistence since citations disappear over time, causing accessibility problems for readers. In this context the present study aims to investigate the availability of web citations and their persistence in Indian Library and Information Science literature. The study also aims to investigate types of link accessibility errors encountered, domains associated with missing web citations and the correlation between the path depth and missing web citations.

Design/methodology/approach - The web citations (URLs) from 350 articles published in Indian Association of Teachers in Library and Information Science (IATLIS) conference volume (2001-2008) were extracted and then tested to determine the accessibility. The W3C Link Checker
(http://validator.w3.org/checklink) was used to evaluate links associated with a cited web resource. This link checker tests a submitted web page for broken or non-valid hypertext links and reports the types of HTTP messages encountered.

Findings - Results of the study show that the average citations per article have been increased substantially from 0.25 (in the year 2001) to
3.02 (in the year 2008). It also found that 45.61 per cent of citations are not accessible during the time of testing, and the majority of web citations show HTTP Error Code 404 (63.84 per cent). Web citations from the .org domain are found to have the highest failure rates (30.29 per
cent) compared to .edu (21.49 per cent) and .com/.co (14.33 per cent) domains.

Originality/value - The researchers analysed 673 web citations from 350 articles published during 2001 to 2008 in IATLIS conference volumes. The study investigated the percentage of missing web citations and domains associated with missing web citations. The study suggests some possible solutions to improve web citation accessibility. This carries research value for web content providers, web authors and researchers in library and information science.

AUTHOR ADDRESS: BTS Kumar, Kuvempu Univ, Dept Lib & Informat Sci, Shimoga,
                Karnataka, India

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TITLE:          Scholarly communication of The Electronic Library from
                2003-2009: a bibliometric study (Article, English)
AUTHOR:         Jena, KL; Swain, DK; Sahu, SB
SOURCE:         ELECTRONIC LIBRARY 30 (1). 2012. p.103-119 EMERALD GROUP
                PUBLISHING LIMITED, BINGLEY

SEARCH TERM(S):  BIBLIOMETR*  item_title

KEYWORDS:       Bibliometrics; Citation analysis; Citation counts;
                Bradford's Law; Journals; Library studies

ABSTRACT:       Purpose - The study aims to divulge the patterns of
scholarly communication of The Electronic Library from 2003 to 2009 and to measure the coverage and quality of contributions of this journal towards LIS literature.

Design/methodology/approach - Seven volumes of The Electronic Library
(TEL) published during the years 2003-2009 collected from Emerald Management Xtra, that constituted 42 issues and a total number of 417 articles carrying 7,442 citations, have been taken up for the analysis.
The study analyzes bibliographical forms, types of articles, authorship pattern, geographical distribution of contributors, chronological distribution of citations, length of articles, and ranking of journals.
The study employs Bradford's Law of Scattering.

Findings - The majority of articles published in TEL fall under the category of research papers, followed by case studies, and general reviews. Regarding the bibliographical distribution of citations, it is found that the majority of citations are from journals, followed by web resources and books. The study further reveals that the average length of articles is 13.017 pages and the scattering of contributors is limited within a few countries.

Originality/value - The paper is relevant and useful to those who are interested in bibliometrics and it provides a comprehensive study of scholarly communication of The Electronic Library, from 2003-2009 for comprehending essential publishing traits of this journal during the stated period.

AUTHOR ADDRESS: KL Jena, Coll Engn & Technol, Bhubaneswar, Orissa, India

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TITLE:          Irreproducible Experimental Results Causes,
                (Mis)interpretations, and Consequences (Editorial Material, English)
AUTHOR:         Loscalzo, J
SOURCE:         CIRCULATION 125 (10). MAR 13 2012. p.1211-1214
                LIPPINCOTT WILLIAMS & WILKINS, PHILADELPHIA

SEARCH TERM(S):  
                 JAMA-J AM MED ASSOC   295:90    2006;
      
KEYWORDS:       Editorials; experimental irreproducibility
KEYWORDS+:       FRAUD

AUTHOR ADDRESS: J Loscalzo, Harvard Univ, Sch Med, Brigham & Womens Hosp,
                Dept Med, 75 Francis St, Boston, MA 02115 USA
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TITLE:          Exploring the development of action research in nursing
                and social care in the UK: A comparative bibliometric review of action
                research designs in social work (2000-2010) (Review, English)
AUTHOR:         McVicar, A; Munn-Giddings, C; Abu-Helil, C
SOURCE:         ACTION RESEARCH 10 (1). MAR 2012. p.79-101 SAGE
                PUBLICATIONS LTD, LONDON

SEARCH TERM(S):  BIBLIOMETR*  item_title

KEYWORDS:       Action research; health and social care; participation;
                research capacity; social work
KEYWORDS+:       INTERVENTION RESEARCH; CHALLENGES

ABSTRACT:       Action research is promoted in the UK as a vehicle for
practice development in health and social care, but its application has not been evaluated. This study reviews research designs in published social work studies, 2000-2010. Applying the analytic strategy of Munn- Giddings et al. (2008) also enabled comparison to be made with nursing action research. Action research has a strong presence in social work.
Studies were highly collaborative, mainly qualitative and largely focused on practice or educational development, though user-focused change had a presence. Participant groups generally were 'active' in the research process, but participation by academics was low. In contrast, authorship was dominated by academics. External funding suggested an attractiveness of action research to funders. Action research in social work shared similarities with nursing. Main differences were involvement of the voluntary sector, the favouring of interactive group working, and a greater likelihood of service users being co-researchers. Of most concern is the lack of authorship (and by implication, ownership) by practitioners or service users. This is contrary to the underpinning inclusive philosophy, and researchers should be more proactive in acknowledging the contribution of individuals, groups or organizations, as appropriate, and so evidence their growth in research capability and capacity.

AUTHOR ADDRESS: A McVicar, Anglia Ruskin Univ, Fac Hlth & Social Care,
                Chelmsford CM1 1SQ, Essex, England

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TITLE:          How the Literature is Used A View Through Citation and
                Usage Statistics of the ADS (Article, English)
AUTHOR:         Henneken, EA; Eichhorn, G; Accomazzi, A; Kurtz, MJ;
                Grant, C; Thompson, D; Bohlen, E; Murray, SS
SOURCE:         PROCEEDINGS OF THE THIRD UN/ESA/NASA WORKSHOP ON THE
                INTERNATIONAL HELIOPHYSICAL YEAR 2007 AND BASIC SPACE
                SCIENCE: NATIONAL ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY OF JAPAN.
                2010. p.141-147 SPRINGER-VERLAG BERLIN, BERLIN

SEARCH TERM(S):  CITATION  item_title; CITATION*  item_title

KEYWORDS:       NASA/Smithsonian Astrophysics Data System; Citation
                statistics; Bibliometrics; e-prints

ABSTRACT:       The data holdings, usage and citation records of the NASA
Astrophysics Data System (ADS) form a unique environment for bibliometric studies. Here we will highlight one such study. Using the citation and usage statistics from the NASA Astrophysics Data System, we study the impact of offering a paper as an electronic pre-print ("e-print") on the arXiv e-print repository, prior to its publication in a scholarly journal. We will address the following questions for astronomy: are people reading the e-prints from arXiv instead of the journal articles?
Are e-prints read in a different way than journal articles? What is the impact of offering a paper as e-print prior to its publication in a scholarly journal? We will show that in astronomy, the e-prints are not being read instead of the journal article. As soon as the journal article is published, users prefer to read the article. Our analysis confirms that journal articles which were submitted as e-print on arXiv, prior to their publication, show higher citation rates than journal articles that were not submitted as e-print.

AUTHOR ADDRESS: EA Henneken, Harvard Smithsonian Ctr Astrophys, 60 Garden
                St, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA

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