Extracting the basic structure of scientific literature

Much of the periodical literature within scientific disciplines is characterized by overlap in content among journals and by scatter of content areas across journals. This obscures the inherent structure that may exist within the literature of a discipline, creating problems for authors seeking suitable publication outlets, for editors wishing to establish coverage policy, and for fibraries wishing to be selective but representative in acquiring journals for a discipline. Four factor analytic studies were done on samples of the periodical literature of physics in an attempt to define its inherent structure. The first study resulted in 10 factors interpreted as journal groups within physics. The remaining three studies resulted in factors that define relatively homogeneous topical or content areas. The consistency of results across the analyses justified the conclusion that factor analysis methods are applicable to defining the structure of the literature of science.