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

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  • Torres-Salinas, Daniel
  • Moed, Henk F.

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Torres-Salinas, Daniel & Moed, Henk F., 2009. "Library Catalog Analysis as a tool in studies of social sciences and humanities: An exploratory study of published book titles in Economics," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 9-26.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:3:y:2009:i:1:p:9-26
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2008.10.002
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    Cited by:

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    5. 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.
    6. Araújo, Tanya & Fontainha, Elsa, 2017. "The specific shapes of gender imbalance in scientific authorships: A network approach," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 88-102.
    7. Maja Jokić & Andrea Mervar & Stjepan Mateljan, 2019. "Comparative analysis of book citations in social science journals by Central and Eastern European authors," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(3), pages 1005-1029, September.
    8. Andrea Bonaccorsi & Cinzia Daraio & Stefano Fantoni & Viola Folli & Marco Leonetti & Giancarlo Ruocco, 2017. "Do social sciences and humanities behave like life and hard sciences?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 112(1), pages 607-653, July.
    9. Daniel Torres-Salinas & Wenceslao Arroyo-Machado & Mike Thelwall, 2021. "Exploring WorldCat identities as an altmetric information source: a library catalog analysis experiment in the field of Scientometrics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(2), pages 1725-1743, February.
    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. Ashraf Maleki, 2022. "OCLC library holdings: assessing availability of academic books in libraries in print and electronic compared to citations and altmetrics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(2), pages 991-1020, February.
    12. 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.
    13. Ülle Must, 2012. "Alone or together: examples from history research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 91(2), pages 527-537, May.
    14. A. J. M. Linmans, 2010. "Why with bibliometrics the Humanities does not need to be the weakest link," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 83(2), pages 337-354, May.
    15. Zhang, Chengzhi & Zhou, Qingqing, 2020. "Assessing books’ depth and breadth via multi-level mining on tables of contents," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(2).
    16. Hao Wang & Sanhong Deng & Xinning Su, 2016. "A study on construction and analysis of discipline knowledge structure of Chinese LIS based on CSSCI," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(3), pages 1725-1759, December.
    17. Ashraf Maleki, 2022. "Why does library holding format really matter for book impact assessment?: Modelling the relationship between citations and altmetrics with print and electronic holdings," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(2), pages 1129-1160, February.
    18. Cheng Wang & Runhua Wu & Lili Deng & Yong Chen & Yingde Li & Yuehua Wan, 2020. "A Bibliometric Analysis on No-Show Research: Status, Hotspots, Trends and Outlook," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-17, May.
    19. Alesia Zuccala & Roberto Cornacchia, 2016. "Data matching, integration, and interoperability for a metric assessment of monographs," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 108(1), pages 465-484, July.
    20. Franc Mali, 2013. "Why an Unbiased External R&D Evaluation System is Important for the Progress of Social Sciences—the Case of a Small Social Science Community," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 2(4), pages 1-14, December.

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