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Book reviews in humanities research evaluations

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  • Alesia Zuccala
  • Thed van Leeuwen

Abstract

Bibliometric evaluations of research outputs in the social sciences and humanities are challenging due to limitations associated with Web of Science data; however, background literature has shown that scholars are interested in stimulating improvements. We give special attention to book reviews processed by Web of Science history and literature journals, focusing on two types: Type I (i.e., reference to book only) and Type II (i.e., reference to book and other scholarly sources). Bibliometric data are collected and analyzed for a large set of reviews (1981–2009) to observe general publication patterns and patterns of citedness and co‐citedness with books under review. Results show that reviews giving reference only to the book (Type I) are published more frequently while reviews referencing the book and other works (Type II) are more likely to be cited. The referencing culture of the humanities makes it difficult to understand patterns of co‐citedness between books and review articles without further in‐depth content analyses. Overall, citation counts to book reviews are typically low, but our data showed that they are scholarly and do play a role in the scholarly communication system. In the disciplines of history and literature, where book reviews are prominent, counting the number and type of reviews that a scholar produces throughout his/her career is a positive step forward in research evaluations. We propose a new set of journal quality indicators for the purpose of monitoring their scholarly influence.

Suggested Citation

  • Alesia Zuccala & Thed van Leeuwen, 2011. "Book reviews in humanities research evaluations," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 62(10), pages 1979-1991, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jamist:v:62:y:2011:i:10:p:1979-1991
    DOI: 10.1002/asi.21588
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    1. Daniel Torres-Salinas & Nicolás Robinson-García & Álvaro Cabezas-Clavijo & Evaristo Jiménez-Contreras, 2014. "Analyzing the citation characteristics of books: edited books, book series and publisher types in the book citation index," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(3), pages 2113-2127, March.
    2. Paul Donner, 2017. "Document type assignment accuracy in the journal citation index data of Web of Science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 113(1), pages 219-236, October.
    3. Julian Hamann & Wolfgang Kaltenbrunner, 2022. "Biographical representation, from narrative to list: The evolution of curricula vitae in the humanities, 1950 to 2010," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 31(4), pages 438-451.
    4. Weishu Liu & Yishan Ding & Mengdi Gu, 2017. "Book reviews in academic journals: patterns and dynamics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 110(1), pages 355-364, January.
    5. P�ivi Oinas & Samuli Lepp�l�, 2013. "Views on Book Reviews," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(10), pages 1785-1789, November.
    6. Thed Leeuwen & Rodrigo Costas & Clara Calero-Medina & Martijn Visser, 2013. "The role of editorial material in bibliometric research performance assessments," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 95(2), pages 817-828, May.
    7. Juan Gorraiz & Christian Gumpenberger & Philip J. Purnell, 2014. "The power of book reviews: a simple and transparent enhancement approach for book citation indexes," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(2), pages 841-852, February.
    8. Olesia Iefremova & Kamil Wais & Marcin Kozak, 2018. "Biographical articles in scientific literature: analysis of articles indexed in Web of Science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 117(3), pages 1695-1719, December.
    9. Ka-wai Fan, 2024. "Book Reviews in Medical History Journals," Publications, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-6, May.
    10. Elea Giménez-Toledo & Jorge Mañana-Rodríguez & Tim C. E. Engels & Peter Ingwersen & Janne Pölönen & Gunnar Sivertsen & Frederik T. Verleysen & Alesia A. Zuccala, 2016. "Taking scholarly books into account: current developments in five European countries," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 107(2), pages 685-699, May.
    11. Daniel Torres-Salinas & Nicolás Robinson-Garcia & Juan Gorraiz, 2017. "Filling the citation gap: measuring the multidimensional impact of the academic book at institutional level with PlumX," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 113(3), pages 1371-1384, December.
    12. Torres-Salinas, Daniel & Rodríguez-Sánchez, Rosa & Robinson-García, Nicolás & Fdez-Valdivia, J. & García, J.A., 2013. "Mapping citation patterns of book chapters in the Book Citation Index," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 412-424.
    13. Kousha, Kayvan & Thelwall, Mike, 2018. "Can Microsoft Academic help to assess the citation impact of academic books?," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 972-984.
    14. Yaoyu Wei & Weiwei Fan, 2018. "A study of book reviews in SCI-Expanded, SSCI, and A&HCI journals by researchers from five countries: 2006–2015," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(2), pages 637-654, May.
    15. Qingqing Zhou, 2024. "Evaluating book impacts via integrating multi-source reviews," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(11), pages 6931-6946, November.
    16. Lixuan Sun & Adelina Asmawi, 2022. "Research Progress and Trend of Business English Writing Instruction in China (2002-2021): A Bibliometric Analysis," World Journal of English Language, Sciedu Press, vol. 12(6), pages 241-241, September.

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