Bibliometric-Enhanced Information Retrieval: 3rd International BIR Workshop

TL;DR

This paper discusses the integration of bibliometric techniques into information retrieval systems to improve literature search and scholarly services, highlighting recent workshop developments and future research directions.

Contribution

It introduces the third BIR workshop focused on fostering collaboration between bibliometrics and information retrieval communities for enhanced scholarly search tools.

Findings

Bibliometric techniques are underutilized in digital library retrieval.

Workshops have advanced understanding of integrating bibliometrics into IR.

Future research aims to incorporate bibliometric services into search engines.

Abstract

The BIR workshop brings together experts in Bibliometrics and Information Retrieval. While sometimes perceived as rather loosely related, these research areas share various interests and face similar challenges. Our motivation as organizers of the BIR workshop stemmed from a twofold observation. First, both communities only partly overlap, albeit sharing various interests. Second, it will be profitable for both sides to tackle some of the emerging problems that scholars face today when they have to identify relevant and high quality literature in the fast growing number of electronic publications available worldwide. Bibliometric techniques are not yet used widely to enhance retrieval processes in digital libraries, although they offer value-added effects for users. Information professionals working in libraries and archives, however, are increasingly confronted with applying bibliometric techniques in their services. The first BIR workshop in 2014 set the research agenda by introducing each group to the other, illustrating state-of-the-art methods, reporting on current research problems, and brainstorming about common interests. The second workshop in 2015 further elaborated these themes. This third BIR workshop aims to foster a common ground for the incorporation of bibliometric-enhanced services into scholarly search engine interfaces. In particular we will address specific communities, as well as studies on large, cross-domain collections like Mendeley and ResearchGate. This third BIR workshop addresses explicitly both scholarly and industrial researchers.