An Introduction to Bibliometrics

An Introduction to Bibliometrics: New Development and Trends provides a comprehensible, readable and easy to read introduction to bibliometrics. Importantly, the book surveys the latest developments of bibliometrics (such as altmetrics, etc.) and how the field is likely to change over the next decade. In the literature, bibliometrics is generally discussed from one of two perspectives: (1) Purely mathematical/statistical or (2) Its sociological implications. Both approaches are very far from how most users want to apply bibliometrics. This book fills that need by providing tactics on how bibliometrics can be applied to their sphere of scientific activity.

• Provides readers with an understanding of bibliometric indicators, including their background and significance, classification in quantitative performance, and an evaluation of science and research
• Includes an overview of the most important indicators, their areas of application, and where and when they should and should not be used
• Discusses future trends in the quantitative performance evaluation of scientific research

Academic science managers and policy makers, R&D analysts, science policy-makers, information science students, academic librarians

1 Preface
2 Introduction and History
3 Bibliometric Methods and their Basic Principles
3.1 The Number of Scientific Publications: Output Analyses
3.2 Measuring Perception: Resonance Analyses
3.3 The Leader Boards: Rankings and Benchmarking Based on Bibliometrics
3.4 Bibliometrics as a Trend Scout: Forecasts and Trend Analyses
3.5 New and Alternative Bibliometric Methods: Altmetrics
3.6 From Causality to Correlation: Big Data in Bibliometrics
4 Bibliometrics in the Humanities and Social Sciences: Special Forms and Methods
4. 1 Introduction
4.2 Publication and Citation Cultures in the Humanities and Social Sciences
4.3 Forms of the Scientific Output from Selected Disciplines
5 Bibliometric Indicators
5.1 The Number of Scientific Publications
5.2 Citability and Citation Rate
5.3 The Hirsch Index
5.4 The Impact Factor
5.5 Alternative Metrics
6 The Data Basis
6.1 Web of Science and Science Citation Index (Thomson Reuters)
6.2 SCOPUS (Elsevier)
6.3 Google Scholar
7 Summary and Outlook