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What is wrong with obsolescence?

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  • Pedro Alvarez
  • Isabel Escalona
  • Antonio Pulgarín

Abstract

The growth of scientific output in recent years has meant that fewer libraries are able to offer the entire range of journals, with the others being forced to make a selection. The objective of the present work is to describe criteria to regulate the selection of these journals to provide the researcher with the information that is most being used in research. One form of quantifying this information is by way of the citations that papers receive over a period of time following their publication. Obsolescence, expressed in terms of an annual aging factor, does not reflect the real behaviour of most papers. An alternative is the use of “topicality,” considered as a latent variable, with the Rasch model as the measuring instrument. We considered 45 physics journals, and found the results of applying the Rasch model to be more satisfactory than those obtained with the annual aging factor.

Suggested Citation

  • Pedro Alvarez & Isabel Escalona & Antonio Pulgarín, 2000. "What is wrong with obsolescence?," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 51(9), pages 812-815.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jamest:v:51:y:2000:i:9:p:812-815
    DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1097-4571(2000)51:93.0.CO;2-B
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    Cited by:

    1. Hu, Zewen & Wu, Yishan, 2014. "Regularity in the time-dependent distribution of the percentage of never-cited papers: An empirical pilot study based on the six journals," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 136-146.
    2. Tanzila Ahmed & Ben Johnson & Charles Oppenheim & Catherine Peck, 2004. "Highly cited old papers and the reasons why they continue to be cited. Part II., The 1953 Watson and Crick article on the structure of DNA," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 61(2), pages 147-156, October.

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