Citation and Rejection Statistics for Eprints and Ejournals

From: Greg Youngen <gyoungen_at_physics.uiuc.edu> <harnad_at_COGSCI.SOTON.AC.UK>
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1998 16:13:36 -0400

From: Greg Youngen <gyoungen_at_physics.uiuc.edu>

Here are the numbers behind my observations of citations to the xxx
eprints. I originally ran the search in April and have updated it with
another search yesterday (including 1998 citation data).

The process involves isolating the physics & astronomy literature,
counting the total number of citations in this group, and from that
extracting the citations to the eprints.

The numbers have remained pretty consistent over the time period. Of
course the percentage of eprints will diminish in time as more and more
articles are published citing the print literature. However, citations to
eprints do represent a significant number of the total citations to the
most current literature.

I have included a number set from our in-house subscription to Science
Citation Index through Web of Science (we only have 1997-98 data) but the
numbers are even more impressive - 9% of the total citations to 1997
literature were to eprints. I don't understand the discrepancy with WoS
and Dialog since they both use the same data - will check on this with
ISI.

Anyway, I hope these tables transfer OK - I have them on an Excel
spreadsheet if there are any problems. I'd appreciate any comments or
suggestions for further research in this area. - Greg.

Citations in the Physics & Astronomy Literature
Source: Science Citation Index on Dialog and Web of Science (WoS)

                (April 1998) (September 1998)
                1995 1996 1997 1995 1996 1997 1998

Physics 143114 84408 28381 168301 110386 51093 7837
Astronomy 20784 13401 5946 24318 17011 9177 2337
Total 163898 97809 34327 192619 127397 60270 10174

Citations to Eprints
Dialog 3328 4351 2161 3585 5301 4395 443
                2% 4% 6% 2% 4% 7% 4%
WoS 5725 613
                                                        9% 6%

DIALOG 9/21/98 - Citations to:
                1995 1996 1997 1998 Total
astro-ph 282 491 439 47 1259
cond-mat 300 587 769 88 1744
gr-qc 240 343 210 27 820
hep-ex 28 56 128 10 222
hep-lat 178 286 257 18 739
hep-ph 843 1307 1095 81 3326
hep-th 1625 1902 1144 129 4800
nucl-ex 10 6 18 1 35
nucl-th 79 157 186 14 436
quant-ph 166 149 28 343
Total 3585 5301 4395 443 13724


WoS 9/21/98 - Citations to:
                1997 1998 Total
astro-ph 594 66 660
cond-mat 1217 106 1323
gr-qc 229 33 262
hep-ex 106 14 120
hep-lat 272 22 294
hep-ph 2648 122 2770
hep-th 257 208 465
nucl-ex 18 1 19
nucl-th 182 182
quant-ph 202 41 243
Total 5725 613 6338

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Greg Youngen
Physics/Astronomy Library Phone: 217-244-2096
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Fax: 217-333-3207
Urbana, IL 61801 youngen_at_uiuc.edu
Received on Tue Aug 25 1998 - 19:17:43 BST