Forsaking your own: unveiling the delayed recognition of Garfield's work on the "delayed recognition" phenomenon

TL;DR

This study investigates whether the phenomenon of delayed recognition itself can experience delayed recognition, using Garfield's 1980 paper on delayed recognition as a case study, revealing that even prominent works can suffer from this phenomenon.

Contribution

It provides an analysis of Garfield's paper on delayed recognition, demonstrating that the DR phenomenon can also be subject to delayed recognition, highlighting a new aspect of scholarly recognition dynamics.

Findings

Garfield's paper on DR received minimal citations initially.

The paper was only briefly awakened after 28 years.

Even prominent scholars' work can suffer from delayed recognition.

Abstract

Delayed recognition (DR) implies that the full scholarly potential of certain scientific papers is recognized belatedly many years after their publication. Such papers are initially barely cited (sleep), and then suddenly, sometime in the future, their citation numbers burst (are awakened). After van Raan (2004a) called them "Sleeping Beauties" the DR phenomenon has drawn considerable attention. However, long before van Raan (2004a) Garfield studied the phenomenon in a series of articles from 1970 up to year 2004. In the present study we ask the pertinent question; Has the phenomenon of DR itself suffered the delayed recognition? In search of an answer we study the citation history of the Garfield (1980a) paper in which Garfield addressed DR directly for the first time. We find that the paper hardly received the attention befitting the Garfield's stature as an information scientist. Specifically, the paper received a meager of 10 citations up to the publication year of van Raan (2004a) and was then, in 2007, feebly awakened from its deep sleep of twenty-eight years receiving 20 citations in next four years; up to 2010. Being the undisputed giant of information science that even Garfield's paper on DR can suffer DR is hardly anticipated.