Publication
Title
Can we rank scholarly book publishers? A bibliometric experiment with the field of history
Author
Abstract
This is a publisher ranking study based on a citation data grant from Elsevier, specifically, book titles cited in Scopus history journals (20072011) and matching metadata from WorldCat® (i.e., OCLC numbers, ISBN codes, publisher records, and library holding counts). Using both resources, we have created a unique relational database designed to compare citation counts to books with international library holdings or libcitations for scholarly book publishers. First, we construct a ranking of the top 500 publishers and explore descriptive statistics at the level of publisher type (university, commercial, other) and country of origin. We then identify the top 50 university presses and commercial houses based on total citations and mean citations per book (CPB). In a third analysis, we present a map of directed citation links between journals and book publishers. American and British presses/publishing houses tend to dominate the work of library collection managers and citing scholars; however, a number of specialist publishers from Europe are included. Distinct clusters from the directed citation map indicate a certain degree of regionalism and subject specialization, where some journals produced in languages other than English tend to cite books published by the same parent press. Bibliometric rankings convey only a small part of how the actual structure of the publishing field has evolved; hence, challenges lie ahead for developers of new citation indices for books and bibliometricians interested in measuring book and publisher impacts.
Language
English
Source (journal)
Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology. - New York, N.Y., 2014, currens
Publication
New York, N.Y. : Wiley , 2015
ISSN
2330-1635 [print]
2330-1643 [online]
DOI
10.1002/ASI.23267
Volume/pages
66 :7 (2015) , p. 1333-1347
ISI
000355858200003
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (open access)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Publication type
Subject
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 18.06.2015
Last edited 09.10.2023
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