The citedness of publications by United Kingdom library schools

Abstract

This paper reports a citation analysis of the 1989 and 1990 publications of seven library or information studies depart ments in the UK. The total number of citations, the mean number of citations per member of staff, and the mean num ber of citations per publication were all strongly correlated ( p<0.005), and the total number of publications less strongly correlated ( p <0.05), with the ratings that these departments achieved in the last Research Assessment Exercise. An analysis of the citedness of different types of research out put from these departments suggests that conference papers and articles in professional journals attract noticeably fewer citations than other types of output, and that articles in scientific journals attract noticeably more citations than articles in social science journals.