A new look at evidence of scholarly citation in citation indexes and from web sources

A sample of 1,483 publications, representative of the scholarly production of LIS faculty, was searched in Web of Science (WoS), Google, and Google Scholar. The median number of citations found through WoS was zero for all types of publications except book chapters; the median for Google Scholar ran...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientometrics 2008, Vol.74 (2), p.317-330
Main Authors: Vaughan, Liwen, Shaw, Debora
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bibliometrics. Scientometrics
Bibliometrics. Scientometrics. Evaluation
Citation analysis
Citation indexes
Computer Science
Exact sciences and technology
Information and communication sciences
Information science. Documentation
Information Storage and Retrieval
Library and information science. General aspects
Library Science
Scholarly publishing
Sciences and techniques of general use
Special-Session Papers Presented at the 9th International Conference on Science and Technology Indicators
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Summary:A sample of 1,483 publications, representative of the scholarly production of LIS faculty, was searched in Web of Science (WoS), Google, and Google Scholar. The median number of citations found through WoS was zero for all types of publications except book chapters; the median for Google Scholar ranged from 1 for print/subscription journal articles to 3 for books and book chapters. For Google the median number of citations ranged from 9 for conference papers to 41 for books. A sample of the web citations was examined and classified as representing intellectual or non-intellectual impact. Almost 92% of the citations identified through Google Scholar represented intellectual impact — primarily citations from journal articles. Bibliographic services (non-intellectual impact) were the largest single contributor of citations identified through Google. Open access journal articles attracted more web citations but the citations to print/subscription journal articles more often represented intellectual impact. In spite of problems with Google Scholar, it has the potential to provide useful data for research evaluation, especially in a field where rapid and fine-grained analysis is desirable.
ISSN:0138-9130
1588-2861
DOI:10.1007/s11192-008-0220-2