Bibliometrics
bibliometrics
Research
People'sresearchonquantitativeliteraturecanbetracedbacktothebeginningofthe20thcentury.In1917,F.J.ColeandN.B.Ilsfirstusedquantitativemethodstostudycomparativeanatomyliteraturepublishedfrom1543to1860,andmadestatisticsonrelevantbooksandjournalarticles,andclassifiedthembycountry.In1923,EWHumeproposedtheterm"documentstatistics"andexplaineditas:"Throughthestatisticsofwrittencommunicationandtheanalysisofotheraspects,wecanobservetheprocessofwrittencommunication,andthenatureanddevelopmentdirectionofacertaindiscipline."In1969,thebibliographicalistA.Pritchardproposedtousebibliometricsinsteadofbibliographicstatistics.Heextendedtheresearchobjectofbibliographicstatisticsfromjournalstoallbookmaterials.Bibliometricshasbecomeanimportantbranchofinformationscienceandphilology.Atthesametime,italsodemonstratedimportantmethodologicalvalueandbecameaspecialresearchmethodofinformationscience.Intheinternallogicalstructureofinformationscience,bibliometricshasgraduallytakenthecorepositionandisanacademiclinkcloselyrelatedtosciencecommunicationandbasictheories.About400to500academicpapersonbibliometricsarepublishedeveryyeararoundtheworld.
Core
Bibliometricsisbasedonseveralempiricalstatisticallaws.Forexample:Lotka'sLaw(1926),whichcharacterizesthedistributionofauthorsofscientificliterature;Zipf'sLaw(1948),whichcharacterizesthedistributionofwordfrequenciesinliterature;Bradford'sLaw(1934),whichdeterminesthedistributionofpapersinacertaindisciplineinjournals,etc..Bibliometricshasbeendevelopingaroundtheselawsintwodirections:oneistoverifyandperfecttheseempiricallaws;theotheristoexpandandpopularizethepracticalapplicationoftheseempiricallaws.Bibliometricsiswidelyused.Microapplicationsincludedeterminingcoredocuments,evaluatingpublications,investigatingtheutilizationrateofdocuments,andrealizingscientificmanagementofthelibraryandinformationdepartment.Macroapplicationsincludedesigningmoreeconomicalintelligencesystemsandnetworks,improvingtheefficiencyofintelligenceprocessing,findingshortcomingsanddefectsindocumentservices,predictingthedirectionofpublication,anddevelopingandperfectingbasicintelligencetheories.
Becauseofthehumanfactorsthataffecttheflowofliteratureandintelligence,manyliteratureissuesarestilldifficulttoquantify.Especiallyduetothehighcomplexityandinstabilityofthedocumentsystem,itisimpossibleforustoobtainsufficientandeffectiveinformationtorevealthemacroscopiclawsofthedocument.Thedevelopmentofbibliometricsdependsonthesupportofmathematicaltoolsandstatisticaltechniques.Transplantingorusingmoreeffectivemathematicaltoolsandstatisticalmethodswillbeanimportantdevelopmentdirection.