Some colleagues may be interested in this
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Richard Hill
Sent: 21 April 2004 16:13
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [Sigiii-l] Wouters P, "The Citation Culture" - full text
available in pdf
[Posted on behalf of Dr. Eugene Garfield. Dick Hill]
In January 2000 I sent the listserv a notice about the publication of
Paul Wouters' doctoral thesis "The Citation Culture" along with an
introduction by me and a brief abstract of the book (reproduced below).
The author has kindly provided a full-text electronic version in pdf
format which is available at :
http://garfield.library.upenn.edu/wouters/wouters.pdf
Paul Wouters can be reached at: [log in to unmask]
Best wishes,
Eugene Garfield
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Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2000 17:56:46 -0500
Reply-To: ASIS Special Interest Group on Metrics
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Subject: ABS: Wouters, The Citation Culture
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"The Citation Culture" by Paul Wouters of the The
Royal Netherlands Academy
of Arts and Sciences, Amsterdam.
The follwing brief introduction was prepared by Eugene Garfield.
In 1999 Paul Wouters published his doctoral dissertation which was
distributed to many of his colleagues. This is undoubtedly one of the
most significant works to be produced in this field since its advent
over forty years ago. The work will be published by Stanford University
Press in approximately one year. In the meantime Paul has kindly
prepared a brief summary and the contents page. It does not include a
list of his many tables and illustrations. I do not agree with many of
Paul's conclusions but his scholarship is remarkable. He spent many
weeks at ISI going through correspondence. He has published many
articles not the least of which was his contribution to the symposium on
the "History of Science Information Systems" which was held in
Pittsburgh in November 1998 and published jointly by ASIS and The
Chemical Heritage Foundation of Philadelphia. Eugene Garfield
Paul Wouters, "The Citation Culture", Stanford University Press
forthcoming--late 2000 or 2001)
Abstract
The need for greater accountability of scientific researchers has
created a number of new professions. The scientometrician is one of
these experts. They measure science scientifically, often on behalf of
science policy officials. The professional scientometrician emerged in
the sixties. Their creation is intimately linked to the invention of the
Science Citation Index (SCI) by Eugene Garfield and his collaborators
in Philadelphia (USA).
The Citation Culture argues that the development of scientometrics can
best be understood if we analyze this field as both indicator and
embodiment of a recently emerged subculture in science: The Citation
Culture. This subculture has unwittingly and subtly changed core
concepts of modern science such as scientific quality and influence.
Because of the citation culture, being cited has profoundly changed its
meaning over the last two decades, with a number of consequences for
scientists. It has moreover contributed to the transformation of the
very essence of science policy, notwithstanding scientometrics's
apparent lack of outstanding successes. This study tries to explore the
possible meaning of the citation culture for the systematic generation
of knowledge.
Today, a scientific publication is easily recognized by its references
to other scientific articles or books. Citing behavior seems to vary
according to personal traits. Nevertheless, the overall citing
properties of the publications within a certain field share the same
characteristics. The sciences and humanities host many types of
specialty-specific citing culture, each slightly different from the
other. The historical development of scientific publishing since the
nineteenth century has provided for a fairly stable ensemble of citing
cultures in science.
The gradual development of regular citing behavior in scientific
publishing created a new resource for research as well as policy:
citation data. It did not take long before these data began to be used.
With hindsight, it seems an almost inevitable outcome of some
straightforward reasoning. If researchers cite the work they find
useful, often cited (``highly cited'') work is apparently more useful
to scientists than work which receives hardly any citations at all.
Hence, the number of times an article is cited, seems to be an accurate
measure of its impact, influence or quality. The same is true of the
collected articles of one particular scientist, research group, journal
or even institution. The more they are cited, the greater their
influence. Sloppy work will not often be cited,except in heated
controversies --- or so the reasoning goes. Therefore, citation
frequency seems a good way of objectively measuring scientific
usefulness, quality, or impact.
Whatever one's view on the import of being cited, citation frequency is
generally supposed to measure something that already exists. This is
based on an implicit realist perspective with respect to the process of
scientific communication: the indicator is seen as a more or less direct
upshot of scientists' activities. Therefore, citation analysis --- the
art of measuring numbers of citations --- provides a window onto the
communication processes between scientists.
This book questions these realist interpretations measuring science by
citations. The citation culture is not a simple aggregate or derivative
of citing culture in science. The citation as used in scientometric
analysis and science and technology indicators is not identical to the
reference produced at the scientist's desk. In other words, the citation
is the product of the citation indexer, not of the scientist. The
Science Citation Index is moreover not merely a bibliographic
instrument. It also creates a new picture of science via bibliographic
references found in scientific literature. In this way, the SCI provides
a fundamentally new representation of science. By focussing on the
seemingly most insignificant entity in scientific communication, the
inventors of the SCI have created a completely novel set of signs and of
a new symbolic universe. The Citation Culture therefore not only tells
how the SCI was created, but also tries to explore its ramifications. It
discusses the main properties of the new representation of science as
well as its impact on science studies, science policy, and on science
itself. Last but not least the book discusses the implications of this
perspective for the theoretical foundations of scientometric analyses in
general and the search for a citation theory in particular.
Paul Wouters
NIWI
The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
PO Box 95110
1090 HC Amsterdam
The Netherlands
T 3120 4628654
F 3120 6658013
WWW www.niwi.knaw.nl
Contents Page of THe Citation Culture
{1}Introduction}{1}
{1.1}Introduction}{1}
{1.2}Citing cultures}{2}
{1.3}Unintended consequences of being cited}{3}
{1.4}An objective representation of science}{5}
{1.4.1}Representation}{5} {1.4.2}The {SCI}}{5} {1.5}The quest for a
citation theory}{8} {1.6}The reference and the citation}{10} {1.7}The
citation representation of science}{12} {1.8}Representing
scientometrics}{14}
{2}The creation of the Science Citation Index}{17}
{2.1}Mixed reception}{17}
{2.2}Enthusiasm for citation}{22}
{2.3}The citation introduced to science}{30}
{3}The building of the Science Citation Index}{59} {3.1}Building the
index}{59} {3.2}Translating the citation concept}{73}
{4}The science of science}{79}
{4.1}Welcoming the \emph {SCI}}{79}
{4.2}Roots}{82}
{4.3}The science of science in Russia, the Ukraine,
and the Soviet Union}{84}
{4.4}Western science of science}{93}
{4.5}``Please reply with more data''}{96}
{4.6}The citation sociologically used}{97}
{4.7}The citation sociologically explained}{103}
{5}The signs of science}{107}
{5.1}Introduction}{107}
{5.2}Basic properties of the citation}{108}
{5.3}Producing citations}{110}
{5.4}Building upon the citation}{115}
{5.5}Other signs of science: co-word analysis}{126}
{5.6}A maze of indicators}{128}
{6}Rating science}{131}
{6.1}Introduction}{131}
{6.2}Early Dutch science policy}{135}
{6.3}Scientometrics within a funding body}{137}
{6.4}Emerging Dutch science studies}{139}
{6.5}Science studies for policy}{141}
{6.6}Indicators for policy}{143}
{7}Scientometrics}{167}
{7.1}Introduction}{167}
{7.2}Collection and organization of the data}{168} {7.3}General
features}{169} {7.4}Has Price's dream come true?}{172}
{7.4.1}Method}{172} {7.4.2}Results}{174} {7.5}Who's Who in
scientometrics?}{177} {7.6}Does scientometrics have its own
identity?}{177}
{7.7}What is scientometrics' position?}{191}
{7.8}Has scientometrics developed a specific
language?}{192}
{8}Representing science}{195}
{8.1}Introduction}{195}
{8.2}Summary of the results so far}{195}
{8.3}A hybrid specialty}{198}
{8.4}Indicators as translators}{198}
{8.5}Paradigmatic versus formalized
representations}{206}
{8.6}Indicator theories}{210}
{8.7}The rise of the formalized}{212}
Executive Director
American Society for Information Science and Technology
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Silver Spring, MD 20910
FAX: (301) 495-0810
(301) 495-0900
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