The citation game

摘要

Bibliometrics has a problem. In fact, the field - which tracks scholarly impact in everything from journal papers to citations, data sets and tweets - has a lot of problems. Its indicators need better interpretation, its tools are widely misused, its relevance is often questioned and its analyses lack timeliness. The expert contributors to Beyond Bibliometrics, edited by information scientists Blaise Cronin and Cassidy Sugimoto, rehearse the fields history and the theory behind those problems; critique both good and bad practices; and set out ideas about new indicators, including those from innovative 'altmetric' data sources. The result is a milestone for the field and a reference for practitioners. But the book misses a trick. It will not reach the nonexperts -such as reviewers, hiring committees and grant panels - who use and often misuse bibliometrics to make decisions.