Reply to Wray

In this letter, I reply to two insightful remarks made by Wray on a study I recently published on Scientometrics. First, I clarify the method I used to assess the transition of Analytic Philosophy to a normal science phase, explaining in more details the epistemological role that different types of citations play. Second, I address the topic of the relationship between the normal science and the aging of the literature. I argue that more research is needed to understand the epistemological meaning of aging

The decline in the concentration of citations, 1900–2007

This article challenges recent research (Evans, 2008) reporting that the concentration of cited scientific literature increases with the online availability of articles and journals. Using Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science, the present article analyses changes in the concentration of citations received (2- and 5-year citation windows) by papers published between 1900 and 2005.Three measures of concentration are used: the percentage of papers that received at least one citation (cited papers); the percentage of papers needed to account for 20%,50%, and 80% of the citations; and the Herfindahl-Hirschman index (HHI). These measures are used for four broad disciplines: natural sciences and engineering, medical fields, social sciences, and the humanities. All these measures converge and show that, contrary to what was reported by Evans, the dispersion of citations is actually increasing

Revisiting De Solla Price: growth dynamics studies of various subjects over last one hundred years

17-35The stalwart historian of science, Derek J. De Solla Price delivered a series of lectures at Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1962, which was dedicated to discussing science and its interaction with society. The collection of these lectures was published in 1963 as a book entitled Little Science, Big Science. Here, Price empirically established that the initial exponential growth pattern of literature reaches a ceiling after a certain time span, which results a logistic growth pattern. This paper analyses Price's empirical theory on the basis of 198 articles that presented growth of literature of variant subjects published since 1913 to 2018. In all, 214 growth models were reported by the 198 articles that analysed growth of literature of more than 50 subjects. It is found that growth patterns reported by nearly 50% articles followed Price's empirical theory, i.e., exponential and logistic growth pattern while remaining 50% articles followed other growth patterns, viz., power model, linear model, etc. All growth models reported by the 198 articles were broadly categorised into five groups on the basis of statistical characteristics, viz., (exponential + logistic), growing without definite pattern (GWDP), linear, non-linear and decaying models. The null hypothesis formulated states that 214 growth models observed by different subjects described in 198 articles will follow either of the five patterns that will be guided by Bradford's Law of Bibliographic Scattering. The null hypothesis is accepted by Chi-square test. It is inferred that the distribution of different models of growth of literature is guided by Bradford's Law where the core or nucleus zone is occupied by the logistic and exponential model, i.e. Price's empirical model prevails in Bradford's nuclear (core) zone

大学図書館における電子ジャーナルの閲読と引用のオブソレッセンス分析

筑波大学修士 (図書館情報学) 学位論文・平成26年3月25日授与 (32621号)201