IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v110y2017i1d10.1007_s11192-016-2172-2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Book reviews in academic journals: patterns and dynamics

Author

Listed:
  • Weishu Liu

    (Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics)

  • Yishan Ding

    (Shanghai Jiao Tong University)

  • Mengdi Gu

    (Shanghai Jiao Tong University)

Abstract

Book reviews play important roles in scholarly communication especially in arts and humanities disciplines. By using Web of Science’s Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index, this study probed the patterns and dynamics of book reviews within these three indexes empirically during the past decade (2006–2015). We found that the absolute numbers of book reviews among all the three indexes were relatively stable but the relative shares were decreasing. Book reviews were very common in arts and humanities, common in social sciences, but rare in natural sciences. Book reviews are mainly contributed by authors from developed economies such as the USA and the UK. Oppositely, scholars from China and Japan are unlikely to contribute to book reviews.

Suggested Citation

  • Weishu Liu & Yishan Ding & Mengdi Gu, 2017. "Book reviews in academic journals: patterns and dynamics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 110(1), pages 355-364, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:110:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-016-2172-2
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-016-2172-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-016-2172-2
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11192-016-2172-2?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Weishu Liu, 2016. "Comments on “a comparative analysis of scientific publications in management journals by authors from Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau: 2003–2012”," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 106(3), pages 1269-1272, March.
    2. Ping Zhou & Bart Thijs & Wolfgang Glänzel, 2009. "Is China also becoming a giant in social sciences?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 79(3), pages 593-621, June.
    3. Yutao Sun & Seamus Grimes, 2016. "The emerging dynamic structure of national innovation studies: a bibliometric analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 106(1), pages 17-40, January.
    4. Maria Karaulova & Abdullah Gök & Oliver Shackleton & Philip Shapira, 2016. "Science system path-dependencies and their influences: nanotechnology research in Russia," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 107(2), pages 645-670, May.
    5. 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.
    6. Liu, Weishu & Hu, Guangyuan & Tang, Li & Wang, Yuandi, 2015. "China's global growth in social science research: Uncovering evidence from bibliometric analyses of SSCI publications (1978–2013)," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 555-569.
    7. P�ivi Oinas & Samuli Lepp�l�, 2013. "Views on Book Reviews," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(10), pages 1785-1789, November.
    8. Jiancheng Guan & Yan Yan & Jingjing Zhang, 2015. "How do collaborative features affect scientific output? Evidences from wind power field," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 102(1), pages 333-355, January.
    9. James Hartley & John Cowan & Cynthia Deeson & Peter Thomas, 2016. "Book reviews in time," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(3), pages 2123-2128, December.
    10. Alesia Zuccala & Thed van Leeuwen, 2011. "Book reviews in humanities research evaluations," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 62(10), pages 1979-1991, October.
    11. n/a, 2016. "Book Reviews," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 4).
    12. Li Tang & Philip Shapira & Jan Youtie, 2015. "Is there a clubbing effect underlying Chinese research citation Increases?," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 66(9), pages 1923-1932, September.
    13. James Hartley, 2006. "Reading and writing book reviews across the disciplines," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 57(9), pages 1194-1207, July.
    14. Juan Gorraiz & Christian Gumpenberger & Philip J. Purnell, 2014. "The power of book reviews: a simple and transparent enhancement approach for book citation indexes," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(2), pages 841-852, February.
    15. n/a, 2015. "Book Reviews," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 4).
    16. Jiang Tan & Hui-Zhen Fu & Yuh-Shan Ho, 2014. "A bibliometric analysis of research on proteomics in Science Citation Index Expanded," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(2), pages 1473-1490, February.
    17. Zhou, Ping & Leydesdorff, Loet, 2006. "The emergence of China as a leading nation in science," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 83-104, February.
    18. Weishu Liu & Guangyuan Hu & Mengdi Gu, 2016. "The probability of publishing in first-quartile journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 106(3), pages 1273-1276, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Meijun Liu & Xiao Hu & Jiang Li, 2018. "Knowledge flow in China’s humanities and social sciences," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 52(2), pages 607-626, March.
    2. Junwen Zhu & Weishu Liu, 2020. "A tale of two databases: the use of Web of Science and Scopus in academic papers," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(1), pages 321-335, April.
    3. Ka-wai Fan, 2024. "Book Reviews in Medical History Journals," Publications, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-6, May.
    4. Liu, Weishu & Hu, Guangyuan & Tang, Li, 2018. "Missing author address information in Web of Science—An explorative study," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 985-997.
    5. Weishu Liu & Rong Ni & Guangyuan Hu, 2024. "Web of Science Core Collection’s coverage expansion: the forgotten Arts & Humanities Citation Index?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(2), pages 933-955, February.
    6. 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.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yaoyu Wei & Weiwei Fan, 2018. "A study of book reviews in SCI-Expanded, SSCI, and A&HCI journals by researchers from five countries: 2006–2015," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(2), pages 637-654, May.
    2. Karaulova, Maria & Shackleton, Oliver & Liu, Weishu & Gök, Abdullah & Shapira, Philip, 2017. "Institutional change and innovation system transformation: A tale of two academies," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 196-207.
    3. Zhenyue Zhao & Xuelian Pan & Weina Hua, 2021. "Comparative analysis of the research productivity, publication quality, and collaboration patterns of top ranked library and information science schools in China and the United States," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(2), pages 931-950, February.
    4. Jingyi Zhao & Chunli Wei & Jiang Li, 2023. "Is the research performance of Chinese returnees better than that of their local counterparts?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(5), pages 3091-3105, May.
    5. Liu, Weishu & Hu, Guangyuan & Tang, Li, 2018. "Missing author address information in Web of Science—An explorative study," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 985-997.
    6. Xueying Liu & Haoran Zhu, 2025. "The diachronic change in linguistic positivity in the academic book reviewing of language studies: a text-mining analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 130(1), pages 133-157, January.
    7. Fang Liu & Guangyuan Hu & Li Tang & Weishu Liu, 2018. "The penalty of containing more non-English articles," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(1), pages 359-366, January.
    8. Wang, Kai & Liu, Xiaojuan & Han, Yutong, 2019. "Exploring Goodreads reviews for book impact assessment," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 874-886.
    9. Liu, Weishu & Hu, Guangyuan & Tang, Li & Wang, Yuandi, 2015. "China's global growth in social science research: Uncovering evidence from bibliometric analyses of SSCI publications (1978–2013)," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 555-569.
    10. Ka-wai Fan, 2024. "Book Reviews in Medical History Journals," Publications, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-6, May.
    11. Hamdi A. Al-Jamimi & Galal M. BinMakhashen & Lutz Bornmann, 2022. "Use of bibliometrics for research evaluation in emerging markets economies: a review and discussion of bibliometric indicators," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(10), pages 5879-5930, October.
    12. 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.
    13. Weishu Liu & Li Tang & Mengdi Gu & Guangyuan Hu, 2015. "Feature report on China: a bibliometric analysis of China-related articles," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 102(1), pages 503-517, January.
    14. Juan Gorraiz & Christian Gumpenberger & Philip J. Purnell, 2014. "The power of book reviews: a simple and transparent enhancement approach for book citation indexes," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(2), pages 841-852, February.
    15. Daniel Torres-Salinas & Nicolás Robinson-Garcia & Juan Gorraiz, 2017. "Filling the citation gap: measuring the multidimensional impact of the academic book at institutional level with PlumX," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 113(3), pages 1371-1384, December.
    16. Yang Liu & Jinyuan Ma & Huanyu Song & Ziniu Qian & Xiao Lin, 2021. "Chinese Universities’ Cross-Border Research Collaboration in the Social Sciences and Its Impact," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-19, September.
    17. Ying Huang & Donghua Zhu & Qi Lv & Alan L. Porter & Douglas K. R. Robinson & Xuefeng Wang, 2017. "Early insights on the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI): an overlay map-based bibliometric study," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 111(3), pages 2041-2057, June.
    18. Weishu Liu, 2016. "Comments on “a comparative analysis of scientific publications in management journals by authors from Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau: 2003–2012”," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 106(3), pages 1269-1272, March.
    19. Daniel Torres-Salinas & Nicolás Robinson-García & Álvaro Cabezas-Clavijo & Evaristo Jiménez-Contreras, 2014. "Analyzing the citation characteristics of books: edited books, book series and publisher types in the book citation index," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(3), pages 2113-2127, March.
    20. Thed Leeuwen & Rodrigo Costas & Clara Calero-Medina & Martijn Visser, 2013. "The role of editorial material in bibliometric research performance assessments," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 95(2), pages 817-828, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Book review; Academic journal; Web of Science; Sciences and social sciences; Arts and humanities;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I29 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Other
    • Y30 - Miscellaneous Categories - - Book Reviews - - - Book Reviews

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:110:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-016-2172-2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.