Comparing book citations in humanities journals to library holdings: Scholarly use versus 'perceived cultural benefit' (RIP)

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingArticle in proceedingsResearchpeer-review

In this paper we examine the statistical relationship between citation counts to books referenced in SCOPUS humanities journals and library holding counts ('libcitations') retrieved from WorldCat®. Our focus is on books (with ISBN numbers) published between 2001-2006, which received citations in History and Literature & Literary Theory journals during the period of 2007-2011. A Spearman's rank correlation coefficient was used, and our test resulted in significant correlations between the citations and 'libcitations'. We present and discuss the details of our dataset (extracted from a much larger, newly constructed database), and comment on why the 'perceived cultural benefit' of holding a book in a research library can lead to, but may not necessarily lead to use (i.e., a citation) of that book in new humanities research.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of ISSI 2013 - 14th International Society of Scientometrics and Informetrics Conference
Number of pages8
Volume1
Publication date1 Dec 2013
Pages353-360
ISBN (Print)9783200031357
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2013
Event14th International Society of Scientometrics and Informetrics Conference, ISSI 2013 - Vienna, Austria
Duration: 15 Jul 201320 Jul 2013

Conference

Conference14th International Society of Scientometrics and Informetrics Conference, ISSI 2013
LandAustria
ByVienna
Periode15/07/201320/07/2013
SponsorASIS and T, USA, Elsevier B.V., EBSCO Information Services, USA, Federal Ministry for Science and Research, Austria, Federal Ministry for Trans., Innov. and Technol., Austria, et al

ID: 204186777