BIBLIOMETRICS Presented by Asha. P Research Scholar DOS in Library and Information Science Research supervisor Dr.Y.Venkatesha Associate professor DOS in Library and Information Science

Introduction Bibliometrics is a set of methods used to study or measure texts and information. Citation analysis and content analysis are commonly used in bibliometric methods. While bibliometric methods are most often used in the field of library and information science. Bibliometrics uses mathematical and statistical methods to analyse and measure the output of scientific publications. Modern bibliometrics has been largely inspired by Derek de Solla Price and the seminal work was carried out by him in the middle of the last century.

The origin of the name ‘Bibliometrics’ The terms Bibliometrics and Scientometrics were almost simultaneously introduced by Pritchard and Nalimov and Mulchenko in While Pritchard explained the term Bibliometrics as “the application of mathematical and statistical methods to books and other media of communication”. Nalimov and Mulchenko defined scientometrics as “the application of quantitative methods which are dealing with the analysis of science viewed as an information process”. According to these interpretations the speciality of scientometrics is restricted to the measurement of science communication, whereas bibliometrics is designed to deal with more general information processes.

Definitions of bibliometrics Pritchard said that bibliometrics is the application of mathematics and statistical methods to books and other media of communication. According to Hulme the purpose of statistical bibliography to shade light on the processes of written communication and the nature and course development of a discipline, by means of counting and analyzing the various faces of written communications. According to Sengupta the bibliometrics is the organization of classification and quantitative evaluation of publication patterns of all macro and micro communications along with their authorship by mathematical and statistical applications and calculations.

Components of Bibliometrics Present-day bibliometric research is aimed at the following three main target-groups that clearly determine topics and sub-areas of “contemporary bibliometrics”. (i) Bibliometrics for bibliometricians (Methodology) This is the domain of basic bibliometric research and is traditionally funded by the usual grants. Methodological research is conducted mainly in this domain. (ii) Bibliometrics for scientific disciplines (Scientific information) The researchers in scientific disciplines form the bigger, but also the most diverse interest-group in bibliometrics. Due to their primary scientific orientation, their interests are strongly related to their speciality. This domain may be considered an extension of science information.

(iii) Bibliometrics for science policy and management (science policy) This is the domain of research evaluation, at present the most important topic in the field. Here the national, regional, and institutional structures of science and their comparative presentation are in the foreground.

Bibliometric Indicators Bibliometric indicator is a device based on some information mechanism (usually bibliographic information) and is a conceptual tool for facilitating futuristic projection and assessment of existing state and status of an intellectual activity. In narrow specific sense a bibliometric indicator is a measure or an index or a statistic (preferably objective) to the impact or quantity of publications as documentary products. These are related to literature indicators, publication indicators, science indicators etc.

Direct bibliometric indicators Direct indicators are those which use the bibliographic data available in a straight forward way from the documents. These are: The number of authors per paper or the collaborators. The no of pages or no of lines in a paper or a document. The proportion of the text matter and the supporting matters and the illustrative matters. The no of references or the reference size. All such quantitative data are directly available from the document.

Derived Indicators Derived indicators are those which cannot be calculated directly from the documents but are to be prepared or calculated after some manipulation using the features and items implicit in the documents. These include: Citation counts and all the indicators derived from citation data together with co citational indicators. Indicators calculated from the word frequency counts in the documents and their derivatives together with indicator based on co-word analysis. Subject categorization of the micro-documents. All the indicators based on ranking procedure of journals, countries, authors, etc based on productivity counts, reference count, citation counts etc.

Assigned indicators Assigned indicators are somewhat extraneous and are attributed by other based on bibliographic features or assessment of thought contents of so called qualities of the documents or bibliographic items. Some of these are: Indicators based on peer judgement. Some of the indicators based on use of documents Indicators based on analysis of scattering. Subject classification of the documents.

Non-bibliometric indicators Non-bibliometric indicators are based on data which are not available or can not be derived from the document description or the documents. They are not at all bibliographic items as such. They are not also assigned characteristics based on some features or aspects of the documents.

Purpose of bibliometric indicators Many of the bibliometric indicators are just intellectual exercises, they can’t be used purposefully. Many of bibliometric indicators are contextual. The ratio of articles published in national journals and the foreign journals may give an idea of international research activities of a developing country.

Laws of Bibliometrics Laws in bibliometrics are:  Lotka's law of scientific productivity : Lotka's Law describes the frequency of publication by authors in a given field.  Bradford's law of scatter: Bradford's Law serves as a general guideline to librarians in determining the number of core journals in any given field.  Zipf's law of word occurrence: Zipf's Law is often used to predict the frequency of words within a text. The Law states that in a relatively lengthy text.

Application of Bibliometrics  To identify research trends and growth of knowledge.  To estimate comprehensiveness of secondary periodicals.  To identify users of different subjects.  To identify authorship and its trends in documents on various subjects.  To forecast past, present and future publishing trends.  To identify core periodicals in different disciplines.  To formulate an accurate weeding and stacking policy.  To formulate an accurate need based acquisition policy within the limited budgetary provision.  To initiate effective multilevel network system.  To predict productivity of publishers, individual authors, organizations and countries.  To develop norms of standardization.

Limitations of bibliometrics Bibliometrics may be gaining in importance and popularity because they are objective and relatively easy to calculate and understand but they still have a number of limitations including:  Bibliometrics were initially based on the model of publishing articles in peer-reviewed journals. This is not the norm for many disciplines particularly in the arts, humanities and social sciences.  Citation patterns vary from subject to subject.  Only a tiny proportion of published research is covered by resources.  Self-citations can be distort in metrics.  Review articles tend to be more highly cited than standard articles.  Citations to a paper may not reflect its quality.  Metrics do not tend to account for the age of a researcher.

Conclusion Bibliometrics is a major sub-discipline of quantitative research. This is a tool used by the library and information science professionals for studying the communication processes, information flows, and others for better understanding and effective management and dissemination of information. Bibliometric techniques are being used for a variety of purposes like determination of various scientific indicators, evaluation of scientific output, selection of journals for libraries and even forecasting the potential of a particular field.

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