IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v78y2009i1d10.1007_s11192-007-1927-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The most highly cited Library and Information Science articles: Interdisciplinarity, first authors and citation patterns

Author

Listed:
  • Jonathan M. Levitt

    (University of Wolverhampton)

  • Mike Thelwall

    (University of Wolverhampton)

Abstract

Highly cited articles are interesting because of the potential association between high citation counts and high quality research. This study investigates the 82 most highly cited Information Science and Library Science’ (IS&LS) articles (the top 0.1%) in the Web of Science from the perspectives of disciplinarity, annual citation patterns, and first author citation profiles. First, the relative frequency of these 82 articles was much lower for articles solely in IS&LS than for those in IS&LS and at least one other subject, suggesting that that the promotion of interdisciplinary research in IS&LS may be conducive to improving research quality. Second, two thirds of the first authors had an h-index in IS&LS of less than eight, show that much significant research is produced by researchers without a high overall IS&LS research productivity. Third, there is a moderate correlation (0.46) between citation ranking and the number of years between peak year and year of publication. This indicates that high quality ideas and methods in IS&LS often are deployed many years after being published.

Suggested Citation

  • Jonathan M. Levitt & Mike Thelwall, 2009. "The most highly cited Library and Information Science articles: Interdisciplinarity, first authors and citation patterns," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 78(1), pages 45-67, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:78:y:2009:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-007-1927-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-007-1927-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-007-1927-1
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11192-007-1927-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Charles Oppenheim, 2007. "Using the h‐index to rank influential British researchers in information science and librarianship," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 58(2), pages 297-301, January.
    2. Blaise Cronin & Lokman I. Meho, 2007. "Timelines of creativity: A study of intellectual innovators in information science," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 58(13), pages 1948-1959, November.
    3. Wolfgang Glänzel & Balázs Schlemmer & Bart Thijs, 2003. "Better late than never? On the chance to become highly cited only beyond the standard bibliometric time horizon," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 58(3), pages 571-586, November.
    4. Anthony F. J. van Raan, 2004. "Sleeping Beauties in science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 59(3), pages 467-472, March.
    5. Alan L. Porter & Alex S. Cohen & J. David Roessner & Marty Perreault, 2007. "Measuring researcher interdisciplinarity," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 72(1), pages 117-147, July.
    6. Jonathan Adams, 2005. "Early citation counts correlate with accumulated impact," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 63(3), pages 567-581, June.
    7. Michel Zitt & Suzy Ramanana-Rahary & Elise Bassecoulard, 2005. "Relativity of citation performance and excellence measures: From cross-field to cross-scale effects of field-normalisation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 63(2), pages 373-401, April.
    8. Pablo D. Batista & Mônica G. Campiteli & Osame Kinouchi, 2006. "Is it possible to compare researchers with different scientific interests?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 68(1), pages 179-189, July.
    9. Anthony F. J. Raan, 2006. "Comparison of the Hirsch-index with standard bibliometric indicators and with peer judgment for 147 chemistry research groups," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 67(3), pages 491-502, June.
    10. Hendrik P. van Dalen & K?ne Henkens, 2005. "Signals in science - On the importance of signaling in gaining attention in science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 64(2), pages 209-233, August.
    11. Tibor Braun & Wolfgang Glänzel & András Schubert, 2006. "A Hirsch-type index for journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 69(1), pages 169-173, October.
    12. Quentin L. Burrell, 2005. "Are “Sleeping Beauties” to be expected?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 65(3), pages 381-389, December.
    13. Dag W Aksnes, 2003. "Characteristics of highly cited papers," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 12(3), pages 159-170, December.
    14. Lutz Bornmann & Hans‐Dieter Daniel, 2007. "What do we know about the h index?," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 58(9), pages 1381-1385, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Colavizza, Giovanni & Franceschet, Massimo, 2016. "Clustering citation histories in the Physical Review," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 1037-1051.
    2. M. A. Martínez & M. Herrera & J. López-Gijón & E. Herrera-Viedma, 2014. "H-Classics: characterizing the concept of citation classics through H-index," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(3), pages 1971-1983, March.
    3. Jiang Wu, 2013. "Geographical knowledge diffusion and spatial diversity citation rank," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 94(1), pages 181-201, January.
    4. Mingyang Wang & Guang Yu & Shuang An & Daren Yu, 2012. "Discovery of factors influencing citation impact based on a soft fuzzy rough set model," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 93(3), pages 635-644, December.
    5. Cristóbal Urbano & Jordi Ardanuy, 2020. "Cross-disciplinary collaboration versus coexistence in LIS serials: analysis of authorship affiliations in four European countries," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(1), pages 575-602, July.
    6. Li, Jiang & Shi, Dongbo & Zhao, Star X. & Ye, Fred Y., 2014. "A study of the “heartbeat spectra” for “sleeping beauties”," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 493-502.
    7. Mu-hsuan Huang & Wang-Ching Shaw & Chi-Shiou Lin, 2019. "One category, two communities: subfield differences in “Information Science and Library Science” in Journal Citation Reports," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 119(2), pages 1059-1079, May.
    8. Nobuko Miyairi & Han-Wen Chang, 2012. "Bibliometric characteristics of highly cited papers from Taiwan, 2000–2009," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 92(1), pages 197-205, July.
    9. Chen, Shiji & Arsenault, Clément & Larivière, Vincent, 2015. "Are top-cited papers more interdisciplinary?," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 1034-1046.
    10. Mu-Hsuan Huang & Chia-Pin Chang, 2014. "Detecting research fronts in OLED field using bibliographic coupling with sliding window," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(3), pages 1721-1744, March.
    11. Lin Zhang & Wolfgang Glänzel, 2012. "Where demographics meets scientometrics: towards a dynamic career analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 91(2), pages 617-630, May.
    12. Cassidy R. Sugimoto, 2011. "Looking across communicative genres: a call for inclusive indicators of interdisciplinarity," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 86(2), pages 449-461, February.
    13. Fan, Lingxu & Guo, Lei & Wang, Xinhua & Xu, Liancheng & Liu, Fangai, 2022. "Does the author’s collaboration mode lead to papers’ different citation impacts? An empirical analysis based on propensity score matching," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(4).
    14. Chen, Shiji & Qiu, Junping & Arsenault, Clément & Larivière, Vincent, 2021. "Exploring the interdisciplinarity patterns of highly cited papers," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1).
    15. Indra Budi & Yaniasih Yaniasih, 2023. "Understanding the meanings of citations using sentiment, role, and citation function classifications," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(1), pages 735-759, January.
    16. C Velmurugan, 2018. "Twenty six year Analysis of Fossil Fuel Related Highly Cited Works: A Web of Science Based Scientometric Profile," International Journal of Environmental Sciences & Natural Resources, Juniper Publishers Inc., vol. 10(5), pages 167-175, May.
    17. Carlos G. Figuerola & Francisco Javier García Marco & María Pinto, 2017. "Mapping the evolution of library and information science (1978–2014) using topic modeling on LISA," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 112(3), pages 1507-1535, September.
    18. Zhang, Yang & Wang, Yang & Du, Haifeng & Havlin, Shlomo, 2024. "Delayed citation impact of interdisciplinary research," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1).
    19. Jiayu Li, 2023. "Publications in Educational Research Journals from Singapore, Japan, and South Korea (2008–2017): A Bibliometric Analysis," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, December.
    20. M. A. Martínez & M. Herrera & E. Contreras & A. Ruíz & E. Herrera-Viedma, 2015. "Characterizing highly cited papers in Social Work through H-Classics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 102(2), pages 1713-1729, February.
    21. Shiji Chen & Yanhui Song & Fei Shu & Vincent Larivière, 2022. "Interdisciplinarity and impact: the effects of the citation time window," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(5), pages 2621-2642, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bar-Ilan, Judit, 2008. "Informetrics at the beginning of the 21st century—A review," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 1-52.
    2. Jonathan M. Levitt & Mike Thelwall, 2008. "Patterns of annual citation of highly cited articles and the prediction of their citation ranking: A comparison across subjects," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 77(1), pages 41-60, October.
    3. Waltman, Ludo, 2016. "A review of the literature on citation impact indicators," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 365-391.
    4. Jiang Li, 2014. "Citation curves of “all-elements-sleeping-beauties”: “flash in the pan” first and then “delayed recognition”," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 100(2), pages 595-601, August.
    5. Alonso, S. & Cabrerizo, F.J. & Herrera-Viedma, E. & Herrera, F., 2009. "h-Index: A review focused in its variants, computation and standardization for different scientific fields," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 273-289.
    6. You Song & Fangling Situ & Hongjun Zhu & Jinzhi Lei, 2018. "To be the Prince to wake up Sleeping Beauty: the rediscovery of the delayed recognition studies," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 117(1), pages 9-24, October.
    7. Leo Egghe, 2007. "Probabilities for encountering genius, basic, ordinary or insignificant papers based on the cumulative nth citation distribution," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 70(1), pages 167-181, January.
    8. Anna Tietze & Philip Hofmann, 2019. "The h-index and multi-author hm-index for individual researchers in condensed matter physics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 119(1), pages 171-185, April.
    9. Fiorenzo Franceschini & Domenico Maisano, 2011. "Bibliometric positioning of scientific manufacturing journals: a comparative analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 86(2), pages 463-485, February.
    10. Mingers, John & Leydesdorff, Loet, 2015. "A review of theory and practice in scientometrics," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 246(1), pages 1-19.
    11. Sebastian K. Boell & Concepción S. Wilson, 2010. "Journal Impact Factors for evaluating scientific performance: use of h-like indicators," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 82(3), pages 613-626, March.
    12. Vieira, E.S. & Gomes, J.A.N.F., 2010. "A research impact indicator for institutions," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 4(4), pages 581-590.
    13. Themis Lazaridis, 2010. "Ranking university departments using the mean h-index," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 82(2), pages 211-216, February.
    14. Li, Jiang & Shi, Dongbo & Zhao, Star X. & Ye, Fred Y., 2014. "A study of the “heartbeat spectra” for “sleeping beauties”," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 493-502.
    15. Ana Paula dos Santos Rubem & Ariane Lima Moura & João Carlos Correia Baptista Soares de Mello, 2015. "Comparative analysis of some individual bibliometric indices when applied to groups of researchers," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 102(1), pages 1019-1035, January.
    16. Rodrigo Costas & Thed N. Leeuwen & Anthony F. J. Raan, 2011. "The “Mendel syndrome” in science: durability of scientific literature and its effects on bibliometric analysis of individual scientists," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 89(1), pages 177-205, October.
    17. Onodera, Natsuo, 2016. "Properties of an index of citation durability of an article," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 981-1004.
    18. Fiorenzo Franceschini & Domenico Maisano & Anna Perotti & Andrea Proto, 2010. "Analysis of the ch-index: an indicator to evaluate the diffusion of scientific research output by citers," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 85(1), pages 203-217, October.
    19. Zhang, Lin & Thijs, Bart & Glänzel, Wolfgang, 2011. "The diffusion of H-related literature," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 5(4), pages 583-593.
    20. Asma Hammami & Nabil Semmar, 2022. "The simplex simulation as a tool to reveal publication strategies and citation factors," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(1), pages 319-350, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:78:y:2009:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-007-1927-1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.