Indicators are the essence of scientometrics and bibliometrics

Abstract

The declared aim of the book of De Bellis (2009) is: ‘‘to provide readers from a wide range of cultural background with a simple and accessible survey of the main concepts, techniques, theoretical premises, and historical developments in the subfield of information science that deals with the quantitative analysis of scientific and technological literature.’’ This aim has been fulfilled only partly by the author. In my view, scientometrics and bibliometrics are overlapping categories. We may differentiate between the two fields only by the aim and possible consequences of the study. The title of the book and its chapters suggest that both bibliometrics and scientometrics would be covered because ‘‘citation analysis’’ (see the title) is one of the most frequently used methods in scientometrics. In my opinion, scientometrics is a scientific field dealing with all quantitative aspects of people or group of people, matters and phenomena in science, and their relationships, but which do not primarily belong within the scope of a particular scientific discipline. I would not restrict scientometrics to information aspects, only and, I would stress here the term: ‘‘quantitative aspects’’. Therefore, I find it rather strange that although the author writes on ‘‘bibliometrics’’, we can find only 16 equations and 3 functions throughout the book, which contains 417 pages. It should be noted that in the book (‘‘Introduction to Informetrics’’, Elsevier, 1990) from Egghe and Rousseau (449 pages) a single chapter (pp. 254–259) (‘‘Citation analysis of scientific journals’’) contains 25 equations. According to the author: ‘‘even though mathematical reasoning is an essential part of current bibliometric research, a book pretending to reproduce even the smallest part of it would inevitably run the risk of losing itself in the details of the formalism.’’ I cannot agree with the above statement, because, referring to J. Kepler: ‘‘The mind comprehends a thing the more correctly the closer the thing approaches toward pure quantity of its origin.’’ The main chapters of the book are the following: Biblio/Sciento/Informetrics: Terminological Issues and Early Historical Developments The Empirical Foundations of Bibliometrics: The Science Citation Index The Philosophical Foundations of Bibliometrics: