Theories of informetrics and scholarly communication / / edited by Cassidy R. Sugimoto.

• Funder: Knowledge Unlatched
• Author: Sugimoto, Cassidy R.; Knowledge Unlatched
• TeilnehmendeR: Sugimoto, Cassidy,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin, [Germany] ;, Boston, [Massachusetts] : : De Gruyter,, 2016.; ©2016
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (438 p.)
• Notes: "A Festschrift in honor of Blaise Cronin."

Scientometrics have become an essential element in the practice and evaluation of science and research, including both the evaluation of individuals and national assessment exercises. Yet, researchers and practitioners in this field have lacked clear theories to guide their work. As early as 1981, then doctoral student Blaise Cronin published "The need for a theory of citing" —a call to arms for the fledgling scientometric community to produce foundational theories upon which the work of the field could be based. More than three decades later, the time has come to reach out the field again and ask how they have responded to this call. This book compiles the foundational theories that guide informetrics and scholarly communication research. It is a much needed compilation by leading scholars in the field that gathers together the theories that guide our understanding of authorship, citing, and impact.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Foreword -- Prologue -- Contents -- Introduction -- The Incessant Chattering of Texts -- Informetrics Needs a Foundation in the Theory of Science -- Referencing as Cooperation or Competition -- Semiotics and Citations -- Data Citation as a Bibliometric Oxymoron -- Type–Token Theory and Bibliometrics -- From a Success Index to a Success Multiplier -- From Matthew to Hirsch: A Success-Breeds-Success Story -- Information’s Magic Numbers: The Numerology of Information Science -- Authors as Persons and Authors as Bundles of Words -- The Angle Sum Theory: Exploring the Literature on Acknowledgments in Scholarly Communication -- The Flesh of Science: Somatics and Semiotics -- Informetric Analyses of Knowledge Organization Systems (KOSs) -- Information, Meaning, and Intellectual Organization in Networks of Inter-Human Communication -- Modeling the Structure and Dynamics of Science Using Books -- Webometrics and Altmetrics: Home Birth vs. Hospital Birth -- Scientific Revolution in Scientometrics: The Broadening of Impact from Citation to Societal -- Altmetrics as Traces of the Computerization of the Research Process -- Interpreting ‘Altmetrics’: Viewing Acts on Social Media through the Lens of Citation and Social Theories -- Biographical information for the editor and contributors -- Index