Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Profiles of monograph authors in the social sciences and humanities: an analysis of productivity, career stage, co-authorship, disciplinary affiliation and gender, based on a regional bibliographic database

  • Published:
Scientometrics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Scholarly monograph authors are compared to other authors, based on bibliographic data registered in the VABB-SHW database from Flanders (Belgium). Monograph authors are found to be most often established male researchers with high productivity, who are relatively less involved in research collaboration (co-authored publications) than are other authors. There exists a clear divergence between most of the individual social science disciplines, where monograph authors make up a marginal share of all authors, and several humanities disciplines where shares are up to one fifth. Relatively more female and non-established authors publish monographs in the humanities compared to the social sciences. A statistical comparison of productivity points to diverging publication patterns in Flemish SSH research: the group of most productive authors counts both monograph authors who also rely on other book publication types, and other authors who publish mostly journal articles.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Borghart, P. (2013). A label for peer-reviewed books. Learned Publishing, 26, 167–171. doi:10.1087/20130303.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cronin, B., & La Barre, K. (2004). Mickey Mouse and Milton: Book publishing in the humanities. Learned Publishing, 17(2), 85–98.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Díaz-Faes, A. A., Bordons, M., van Leeuwen, T., & Galindo, M. P. (2015). Outlining the scientific activity profile of researchers in the social sciences and humanities in Spain: The case of CSIC. In A. A. Salah, Y. Tonta, A. A. Akdag Salah, C. R. Sugimoto, & U. Al (Eds.), Proceedings of ISSI 2015 Istanbul: 15th international society of scientometrics and informetrics conference, Istanbul, Turkey, 29 June to 3 July 2015. Istanbul: Bogaziçi University Printhouse.

  • Engels, T. C. E., Ossenblok, T. L. B., & Spruyt, E. H. J. (2012). Changing publication patterns in the social sciences and humanities, 2000–2009. Scientometrics, 93(2), 373–390. doi:10.1007/s11192-012-0680-2.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Giménez-Toledo, E., Manana-Rodriguez, J., Engels, T. C. E., Ingwersen, P., Pölönen, J., Sivertsen, G., et al. (2016). Taking scholarly books into account. Current developments in five European countries. Scientometrics. doi:10.1007/s11192-016-1886-5.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giménez-Toledo, E., Tejada-Artigas, C., & Manana-Rodriguez, J. (2013). Evaluation of scientific books’ publishers in social sciences and humanities: Results of a survey. Research Evaluation, 22, 64–77. doi:10.1093/reseval/rvs036.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gorraiz, J., Purnell, P. J., & Glänzel, W. (2013). Opportunities and limitations of the Book Citation Index. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 64(7), 1388–1398. doi:10.1002/asi.22875.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hammarfelt, B., & de Rijcke, S. (2015). Accountability in context: Effects of research evaluation systems on publication practices, disciplinary norms and individual working routines in the faculty of arts at Uppsala University. Research Evaluation, 24, 63–77.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kousha, K., & Thelwall, M. (2015). Web indicators for research evaluation. Part 3: books and non-standard outputs. El professional de la informacion, 26(6), 724–736.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kousha, K., Thelwall, M., & Somayeh, R. (2011). Assessing the citation impact of books: the role of Google books, Google Scholar, and Scopus. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 62(11), 2147–2164.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kyvik, S. (1991). Productivity in academia: Scientific publishing at Norwegian universities. Trogstadt: Norwegian University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leydesdorff, L., & Felt, U. (2012). Edited volumes, monographs and book chapters in the Book Citation Index (BKCI) and Science Citation Index (SCI, SoSCI, A&HCI). Journal of Scientometric Research, 1, 28–34. doi:10.5530/jscires.2012.1.7.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • OAPEN-UK. (2014). Survey of use of monographs by academics—as authors and readers (Report). Retrieved from http://oapen-uk.jiscebooks.org/research-findings/researcher-survey-2014/.

  • Ossenblok, T. L. B. (2016). Scientific communication in the social sciences and humanities. Analysis of publication and collaboration in Flanders. (Doctoral dissertation). Antwerp: University of Antwerp.

  • Ossenblok, T. L. B., & Engels, T. C. E. (2015). Edited books in the social sciences and humanities: Characteristics and collaboration analysis. Scientometrics. doi:10.1007/s11192-015-1544-3.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ossenblok, T. L. B., Engels, T. C. E., & Sivertsen, G. (2012). The representation of the social sciences and humanities in the Web of Science. A comparison of publication patterns and incentive structures in Flanders and Norway (2005–9). Research Evaluation, 21, 280–290.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ossenblok, T. L. B., Guns, R., & Thelwall, M. (2015). Book editors in the social sciences and humanities: an analysis of publication and collaboration patterns of established researchers in Flanders. Learned Publishing, 28, 261–273. doi:10.1087/20150405.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Puuska, H.-M. (2010). Effects of scholar's gender and professional position on publishing productivity in different publication types. Analysis of a Finnish university. Scientometrics, 82(2), 419–437. doi:10.1007/s11192-009-0037-7.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Puuska, H.-M. (2014). Scholarly publishing patterns in Finland—A comparison of disciplinary groups. (Doctoral dissertation). Tampere: University of Tampere.

  • Sivertsen, G., & Larsen, B. (2012). Comprehensive bibliographic coverage of the social sciences and humanities in a citation index: An empirical analysis of the potential. Scientometrics, 91(2), 567–575.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thompson, J. W. (2002). The death of the scholarly monograph in the humanities? Citation patterns in literary scholarship. Libri, 52, 121–136.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thompson, J. B. (2005). Books in the digital age. The transformation of academic and higher education publishing in Britain and the United States. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Torres-Salinas, D., Robinson-Garcia, N., Cabezas-Clavijo, Á., & Jiménez-Contreras, E. (2013a). Analyzing the citation characteristics of books: Edited books, book series and publisher types in the Book Citation Index. Scientometrics, 98(3), 2113–2127. doi:10.1007/s11192-013-1168-4.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Torres-Salinas, D., Rodriguez-Sanchez, R., Robinson-Garcia, N., & Fdez-Valdivia, J. A. G. (2013b). Mapping citation patterns of book chapters in the Book Citation Index. Journal of Informetrics, 7(2), 412–424.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Verleysen, F. T., & Engels, T. C. E. (2014a). Barycenter representation of book publishing internationalization in the social sciences and humanities. Journal of Informetrics, 8, 234–240.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Verleysen, F. T., & Engels, T. C. E. (2014b). Internationalization of peer reviewed and non-peer reviewed book publications in the social sciences and humanities. Scientometrics, 101(2), 1431–1444. doi:10.1007/s11192-014-1267-x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Verleysen, F. T., Ghesquière, P., & Engels, T. C. E. (2014c). The objectives, design and selection process of the Flemish Academic Bibliographic Database for the Social Sciences and Humanities (VABB-SHW). In W. Blockmans et al. (Eds.), The use and abuse of bibliometrics (pp. 115-125): Academiae Europaea; Portland Press.

  • Verleysen, F. T., & Weeren, A. (2016). Clustering by publication patterns of senior authors in the social sciences and humanities. Journal of Informetrics, 10, 254–272. doi:10.1016/j.joi.2016.01.004.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • White, H. D., Boell, S. K., Yu, H., Davis, M., Wilson, C. S., & Cole, F. T. H. (2009). Libcitations: A measure for comparative assessment of book publications in the humanities and social sciences. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 60(6), 1083–1096.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Whitley, R. (2000). The intellectual and social organization of the sciences. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zuccala, A., Verleysen, F. T., Cornacchia, R., & Engels, T. C. E. (2015). Altmetrics for the humanities: comparing Goodreads reader ratings with ciatations to history books. Aslib Journal of Information Management, 67(3), 320–336. doi:10.1108/AJIM-11-2014-0152.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Tim Engels, Raf Guns and Ronald Rousseau for their helpful comments and suggestions. The Centre for R&D monitoring (ECOOM) is funded by the Flemish government.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for R&D Monitoring (ECOOM), Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Antwerp, Middelheimlaan 1, 2020, Antwerp, Belgium

    Frederik T. Verleysen & Truyken L. B. Ossenblok

Authors
  1. Frederik T. Verleysen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Truyken L. B. Ossenblok
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Frederik T. Verleysen.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Verleysen, F.T., Ossenblok, T.L.B. Profiles of monograph authors in the social sciences and humanities: an analysis of productivity, career stage, co-authorship, disciplinary affiliation and gender, based on a regional bibliographic database. Scientometrics 111, 1673–1686 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2312-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2312-3

Keywords

Search

Navigation