Library Catalog Analysis as a tool in studies of social sciences and humanities: An exploratory study of published book titles in Economics

Daniel Torres-Salinas and Henk F. Moed

Journal of Informetrics, 2009, vol. 3, issue 1, 9-26

Abstract: This paper explores the use of Library Catalog Analysis (LCA), defined as the application of bibliometric or informetric techniques to a set of library online catalogs, to describe quantitatively a scientific-scholarly field on the basis of published book titles. It focuses on its value as a tool in studies of Social Sciences and Humanities, especially its cognitive structures, main book publishers and the research performance of its actors. The paper proposes an analogy model between traditional citation analysis of journal articles and Library Catalog Analysis of book titles. It presents the outcomes of an exploratory study of book titles in Economics included in 42 academic library catalogs from 7 countries. It describes the process of data collection and cleaning, and applies a series of indicators and thematic mapping techniques. It illustrates how LCA can be fruitfully used to assess book production and research performance at the level of an individual researcher, a research department, an entire country and a book publisher. It discusses a number of issues that should be addressed in follow-up studies and concludes that LCA of published book titles can be developed into a powerful and useful tool in studies of Social Sciences and Humanities.

Keywords: Library catalogs; Scientific-scholarly books; Social sciences and humanities; Book publishers; Bibliometric indicators; Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751157708000527
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:infome:v:3:y:2009:i:1:p:9-26

DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2008.10.002

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Informetrics is currently edited by Leo Egghe

More articles in Journal of Informetrics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().