Bibliometrics
Bibliometrics is the study, or measurement, of texts and information (Norton, 2001). Bibliometrics is a type of content analysis. While it is most often used in the field of library and information science, it has wide applications in other areas.
Historically bibliometric methods have been used to trace relationships amongst academic journal citations. Citation analysis, which involves examining an item's referring documents, is used in searching for materials and analyzing their merit. Citation indexes, such as Institute for Scientific Information's Web of Science, allow users to search forward in time from a known article to more recent publications which cite the known item.
Data from citation indexes can be analyzed to determine the popularity and impact of specific articles, authors, and publications. Using citation analysis to gauge the importance of one's work, for example, is a significant part of the tenure review process. Information scientists also use citation analysis to quantitatively assess the core journal titles and watershed publications in particular disciplines; interrelationships between authors from different institutions and schools of thought; and related data about the sociology of academia.
Although citation analysis is nothing new (the Science Citation Index began publication in 1961), greater computing power is making it more useful and widespread. Google's PageRank is based on the principle of citation analysis.
Other bibliometrics applications include: creating thesauri; measuring term frequencies; exploring grammatical and syntactical structures of texts.
References
Norton, Melanie J. 2001. Introductory Concepts in Information Science. Information Today, Inc: New Jersey.
See also
Categories: Library and information science | Literature stubs