Referenced Publication Years Spectroscopy applied to iMetrics: Scientometrics, Journal of Informetrics, and a relevant subset of JASIST

摘要

We have developed a (freeware) routine for "referenced publication yearsspectroscopy" (RPYS) and apply this method to the historiography of "iMetrics,"that is, the junction of the journals Scientometrics, Informetrics, and therelevant subset of JASIST (approx. 20%) that shapes the intellectual space forthe development of information metrics (bibliometrics, scientometrics,informetrics, and webometrics). The application to information metrics (our ownfield of research) provides us with the opportunity to validate thismethodology, and to add a reflection about using citations for the historicalreconstruction. The results show that the field is rooted in individualcontributions of the 1920s-1950s (e.g., Alfred J. Lotka), and was then shapedintellectually in the early 1960s by a confluence of the history of science(Derek de Solla Price), documentation (e.g., Michael M. Kessler's"bibliographic coupling"), and "citation indexing" (Eugene Garfield).Institutional development at the interfaces between science studies andinformation science has been reinforced by the new journal Informetrics since2007. In a concluding reflection, we return to the question of how thehistoriography of science using algorithmic means--in terms of citationpractices--can be different from an intellectual history of the field based,for example, on reading source materials.