Re: Query about journal (not author) self-citation rates

From: David Goodman <dgoodman_at_PHOENIX.PRINCETON.EDU>
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2003 15:16:10 -0500

One interesting figure that may put this in perspective:
in 1999, Physical Review Letters cited 7972 articles; 26% of them were
from PRL itself, and 42% from the total PRL/PR A-E group.
If there is any abuse, I suspect it occurs at the bottom level.

 Some publishers, including even the best societies and the best
commercial publishers, do advertise impact factor. The ones without a
good impact factor for a particuar journal advertise the total citations, or
the increase in citations, or the number of articles published,
or the increase in articles published, or whatever number
looks good--even if it is only the total number of journals they publish.

Those who advertise in these ways must think that librarians are fools. If
these advertisements are effective, then I suppose we are.
What I hope (and think) is that they are not effective, and that
libraries buy journals because their patrons need them.

David Goodman
Princeton University Library
and
Palmer School of Library and Information Science, LIU

dgoodman_at_princeton.edu
Received on Tue Mar 25 2003 - 20:16:10 GMT