Bibliometrics & Citation Tracking  

80% of the citations come from about 20% of the journals cited, identifying a core list for a local journal collection.

-- (Chung, 2007)

Eigenfactor Social Science Citation Relationships 2004

Thomson Reuters (ISI Web of Knowledge)

• The branch of library science concerned with the application of mathematical and statistical analysis to bibliography; the statistical analysis of books, articles, or other publications. (Oxford English Dictionary Online)


• In other words…data about publications, or citation frequency.


• Scientometrics is the branch of information science concerned with the application of bibliometrics to the study of the spread of scientific ideas; the bibliometric analysis of science. (Oxford English Dictionary Online)

A student asks you "What are the best journals in my field?"

A professor asks you "Who is citing my articles? How many times have I been cited?"

A student asks you "How do I know this article is important?"

A professor asks you "Which journal should I publish in?"

Bibliometrics effects:

• People
• Journal collections
• Research Funding
• Tenure
• Expertise status in the field
• Finding others in the field/subject area (using citation searching)

Ball, P. 2005, "Index aims for fair ranking of scientists.", Nature, vol. 436, no. 7053, pp. 900.

Bergstrom, C. (2007). Eigenfactor: Measuring the value and prestige of scholarly journals. College and Research Libraries News, 68(5), 314-316. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/publications/crlnews/2007/may/eigenfactor.cfm.

Chung, H. (2007). Evaluating academic journals using impact factor and local citation score. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 33(3), 393-402. doi: 10.1016/j.acalib.2007.01.016

Garfield, E. (2006). The history and meaning of the journal impact factor. JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 295(1), 90-93. doi:10.1001/jama.295.1.90

Gonzalez-Pereira, B., Guerrero-Bote, V. & Moya-Anegon, F. (2009). The SJR indicator: A new indicator of journals' scientific prestige. Retrieved 2/4/2010, 2010, from http://arxiv.org/abs/0912.4141.

Hirsch, J.E. 2005, "An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 102, no. 46, pp. 16569-16572.

Moed, H. F. (2009). Measuring contextual citation impact of scientific journals. Retrieved 2/4/2010, 2010, from http://arxiv.org/abs/0911.2632.

Small, H. 1999, "Visualizing science by citation mapping", Journal of the American Society for Information Science, vol. 50, no. 9, pp. 799-813.

This guide includes content adapted with permission from Citation Searching and Bibliometric Measures created by the University Library System at the University of Pittsburgh.