Challenges and Opportunities for Bibliometrics in the Electronic Environment

SUMMARY

The digitization of back issues of print journals creates opportunities for bibliometric analysis using the electronic text files. Using readily available software, simple methods, and a little creativity, librarians can extract and manipulate information from database search results and from digitized journals for analysis of publication and citation behavior. The current study describes methods and results from a bibliometric and citation analysis of the electronic version of the Proceedings of the Oklahoma Academy of Science. This study illustrates the opportunities as well as the challenges for bibliometrics and citation analysis in the electronic environment. As more journals migrate to the digital environment, issues of access, copyright and fair use, online file formats, and idiosyncrasies in the digital files may limit the opportunities for bibliometric analysis.

Key Words:

• Bibliometrics
• citation analysis
• scientific communication
• electronic publishing