Unfounded attribution of the “half‐life” index‐number of literature obsolescence to Burton and Kebler: A literature science study

Abstract

AbstractThe term and notion of the “half‐life” index‐number of literature obsolescence, as well as their borrowing from nuclear physics and adaptation into the literature of literature obsolescence, have up to now been attributed to the librarian Burton and the physicist Kebler and to their famous 1960 journal article. In this article it is documented that (1) Burton and Kebler in their 1960 article were not the first to use the term literature “half‐life”; (2) it was not Burton and Kebler who borrowed the conception of “half‐life” from nuclear physics and not them who adapted it into the literature of literature obsolescence; (3) in their 1960 article Burton and Kebler first made critical and later ambiguous statements, and finally attributed only “some validity” to the idea of literature half‐life; (4) Burton and Kebler stated and produced an argument to show that there is an essential difference between the nature of radioactive “half‐life” and that of literature “half‐life”, and they therefore disapproved the use of the latter term; (5) in his next article published in 1961 and entirely left out of consideration, Burton proposed the term “median age” of statistical nature in place of the term literature “half‐life”. For all these reasons it is unfounded and erroneous to continue to attribute the term and conception of literature “half‐life” to Burton and Kebler.