Referenced Publication Years Spectroscopy applied to iMetrics: Scientometrics, Journal of Informetrics, and a relevant subset of JASIST

TL;DR

This paper introduces a freeware method called referenced publication years spectroscopy (RPYS) and applies it to analyze the historiography of iMetrics, revealing its development rooted in early 20th-century contributions and shaping through key scientific and bibliometric influences.

Contribution

The paper develops and validates a new RPYS method for historical analysis of scientific fields using citation data, specifically applied to iMetrics.

Findings

Field rooted in 1920s-1950s contributions

Shaped by 1960s science history and bibliometrics

Institutional growth with the journal Informetrics since 2007

Abstract

We have developed a (freeware) routine for "referenced publication years spectroscopy" (RPYS) and apply this method to the historiography of "iMetrics," that is, the junction of the journals Scientometrics, Informetrics, and the relevant subset of JASIST (approx. 20%) that shapes the intellectual space for the development of information metrics (bibliometrics, scientometrics, informetrics, and webometrics). The application to information metrics (our own field of research) provides us with the opportunity to validate this methodology, and to add a reflection about using citations for the historical reconstruction. The results show that the field is rooted in individual contributions of the 1920s-1950s (e.g., Alfred J. Lotka), and was then shaped intellectually in the early 1960s by a confluence of the history of science (Derek de Solla Price), documentation (e.g., Michael M. Kessler's "bibliographic coupling"), and "citation indexing" (Eugene Garfield). Institutional development at the interfaces between science studies and information science has been reinforced by the new journal Informetrics since 2007. In a concluding reflection, we return to the question of how the historiography of science using algorithmic means--in terms of citation practices--can be different from an intellectual history of the field based, for example, on reading source materials.