Citation Indexing

Citation Indexing

Citation indexing is a kind of indexing in which the bibliographic references of documents are made searchable and refer to the documents being indexed. The cited references in a document is made part of the subject access points available for information retrieval.

Citation indexes are indexes based on this kind of indexing. The modern history of citation indexing and citation indexes began with Eugene Garfield's construction of the Science Citation Index in 1963 published by the Institute for Scientific Information, ISI (followed by the Social Sciences Citation Index in 1972 and the Arts and Humanities Citation Index in 1980. About 2001 ISI lost its monopoly on citation indexes and other databases, e.g. PsycINFO, began to add bibliographical references to their records).

Citation indexes are powerful tools that allows searching documents, which cites a given set of other documents. The application of citation indexes for information retrieval is based on the implicit definition of subjects that the relation between citing and cited documents is a kind of subject relatedness. In this way the traditional view of what a subject is somewhat challenged.

Any tool may of course be abused or misunderstood. This is also the case with citation indexes. Their usefulness is limited 1) by factors controlled by the providers as well as 2) by factors inherent in the documents being indexed. Concerning 1) is the coverage important: What is being indexed (consequently: what is omitted). Also the way the indexing is done is important. For example, the ISI indexes abridge first names, why name confusion may occur in some cases. This problem is solved by, for example, the PsycINFO database. Concerning 2) the value of citation indexes depends on the citation behavior of people writing the documents being indexed. Garfield (1980) found that the humanities use implicit references much more that science and social science do.

One of the most known critics of the use of citation indexes is MacRoberts & MacRoberts (1989). Another critical investigation is Matter & Broms (1983), who criticize Science Citation Index (SCI) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) arguing that these indexes do not provide the kind of network between researchers as claimed by Garfield and that most cited authors not necessarily are the best authors. The paper report tests in SCI and SSCI demonstrating that these indexes are only functioning in some fields, dominated by American research and "normal science". In new fields, in European research and in new research fields the citation indexes are performing poorly.

Citation indexes should not be mixed up with reference books containing famous maxims. The last kind is termed quotations. An example of a major handbook of quotations is Stevenson (1984).

Literature:

Bawden, D. (1992). Citation indexing. IN: C. J. Armstrong & J. A. Large (Eds.). Manual of online search strategies. 2nd ed. Aldershot: Ashgate. (Pp. 9-50).

Garfield, E. 1955. Citation indexes for science: A new dimension in documentation through association of ideas. Science, 122 (3159): 108-111. Available at: http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/essays/v6p468y1983.pdf

Garfield, E. (1979/1983). Citation Indexing: Its theory and Application in Science, Technology and Humanities. New York: Wiley & Sons. (Reprinted by ISI Press, 1983). Available at: http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/ci/title.pdf

Garfield, E. (1980). Is Information Retrieval in the Arts and Humanities Inherently Different from that in Science. Library Quarterly, 50(1), 40-57. Available at: http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/essays/v6p623y1983.pdf

Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), Web of Science. http://www.isiknowledge.com/

MacRoberts, M. H. & MacRoberts, B. R. (1989). Problems of citation analysis: a critical review. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 40(5), 342-349.

Matter, G. A. & Broms, H. (1983). The myth of Garfield and citation indexing. Tidskrift för Dokumentation, 39(1), 1-8, 27. (In English)

Stevenson, B. (1984). The Home Book of Quotations: Classical and Modern. 10th ed. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co.

Thomson ISI. 2005. History of citation indexing. http://scientific.thomson.com/knowtrend/essays/citationindexing/history/

Weinstock, M. 1971. Citation indexes. In: Kent, A. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science. New York: Marcel Dekker, Vol. 5: 16-41. Available at: http://garfield.library.upenn.edu/essays/V1p188y1962-73.pdf

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Institute for Scientific Information. Web of Knowledge. http://portal15.isiknowledge.com/portal.cgi/portal.cgi?DestApp=WOS&Func=Frame&Init=Yes&SID=X2andhIeHi4nbOlJgf4