Would I be very cynical to ask whether those who cite articles have
necessarily always read them?
Sally
Sally Morris, Secretary-General
Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3UU, UK
Phone: 01903 871686 Fax: 01903 871457 E-mail: sec-gen_at_alpsp.org
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----- Original Message -----
From: <hbosc_at_tours.inra.fr>
To: <AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG>
Sent: 25 January 2001 19:57
Subject: Re: Survey: How many refereed journals can your library NOT afford?
> One way to estimate the percentage of Pay-Per-View is to study the cited
> literature.
>
> This study was done by my colleague Patricia Volland-Nail for the
> articles published in our laboratory by 65 researchers studying
> domestic animal reproductive physiology and behaviour. Our lab is
> organized into 8 teams. Our library subscribes to 94 periodicals. The
> study was for the period 1996-1999 (4 years).
>
>
> Patricia used Science Citation Index and found 298 indexed articles
> published by the researchers from our lab. These 298 articles generated
> 12167 citations in 1751 differents sources (periodicals,
> proceedings...)
>
> The 20 most cited periodicals were cited 4983 times (41% of total
> citations). The 3 most cited periodicals were cited 766, 757, 703 times
> and the 20th, 107 times.
>
> Of these 20 top periodicals, two are not in our library: Brain Research
> and Journal of Comparative Neurology. Each costs about $13 000. (This
> is perhaps not the precise price, but I was obliged to convert from
> french francs).
>
> We counted the number of cited periodicals by
> each team (minimum 4 times for 4 years).
>
> T1 cited 20 periodicals: 6 were not it our library : 30%
> T3 cited 47 periodicals: 20 were not in our libraty : 42%
> T4 cited 47 periodicals: 23 were not in our library : 49%
> T5 cited 45 periodicals: 13 were not in our library : 29%
> T6 cited 26 periodicals: 7 were not in our library : 37%
> T7 cited 57 periodicals: 17 were not in our library :30%
> T8 cited 48 periodicals: 17 were not in our library : 35%
>
> (Note that accessing only the "top periodicals" may be restrictive
> for the mind. Often these periodicals merely happen to follow a
> "fashion". I have two examples in my lab of "success" or progress in
> research through using a very inusual literature. First, a researcher
> found the solution to his problem concerning spermatogenesis by looking
> at a vegetal model in the vegetal literature. Second, accessing a very
> original russian litterature concerning behavior and genetics made
> possible a new form of research in the study of domestic animal
> behaviour.)
>
> Helene Bosc
> Bibliotheque
> Unite Physiologie de la Reproduction
> et des Comportements
> UMR 6073 INRA-CNRS-Universite F. Rabelais
> 37380 Nouzilly
> France
>
> http://www.tours.inra.fr/
> TEL : 02 47 42 78 00
> FAX : 02 47 42 77 43
> e-mail: hbosc_at_tours.inra.fr
Received on Wed Jan 03 2001 - 19:17:43 GMT