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A citation-based cross-disciplinary study on literature ageing: part II—diachronous aspects

Scientometrics volume 111, pages 1559–1572 (2017)Cite this article

Abstract

In the first part of our study (Zhang and Glänzel in Scientometrics, 2017) we provided a view of the literature ageing based on a synchronous approach. Taking up the ideas by Egghe (Scientometrics 27(2):195–214, 1993) and Glänzel et al. (Scientometrics 109(3):2165–2179, 2016) we extend our study in the second part by applying a diachronous approach on the basis of citing literature. For this purpose we used the Prospective Price Index which was recently introduced by Glänzel et al. (Scientometrics 109(3):2165–2179, 2016). Finally, we compare the two aspects of literature ageing. In particular, we analyze the correlation between the share of recent references and the share of fast response, and found a generally positive correlation between both aspects at different levels of aggregation (subfields, major fields and the individual paper level). However, the consistence varies among different aggregations. For examples, on the level of subject fields, Chemistry, Biology, Neuroscience & Behavior are found with evidently better ranks by Prospective Price Index than Price Index, indicating their faster ageing process in the mirror of citations than references, while Engineering and Social sciences are found with the opposite ageing features. At the journal level, we observed a striking divergence between the reference and citation ageing patterns in some cases. Thus several journals proved ‘hard’ from the perspective of information sources (cited papers) but, at the same time, rather ‘soft’ in the light of information targets (citing papers).

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Acknowledgements

Lin Zhang acknowledges the National Natural Science Foundation of China Grants 71573085 and 71103064, the Innovation talents of science and technology in HeNan Province (16HASTIT038; 2015GGJS-108) and the research center of information technology & economic and social development in Zhejiang Province. We are grateful for two anonymous reviewers’ insightful comments and valuable advices.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management and Economics, North China University of Water Resources and Electric Power, Zhengzhou, China

    Lin Zhang

  2. Centre for R&D Monitoring (ECOOM) and Department of MSI, KU Leuven, Louvain, Belgium

    Lin Zhang & Wolfgang Glänzel

  3. Department of Science Policy & Scientometrics, Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary

    Wolfgang Glänzel

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  1. Lin Zhang
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  2. Wolfgang Glänzel
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Correspondence to Lin Zhang.

Appendix

Appendix

See Table 4.

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Zhang, L., Glänzel, W. A citation-based cross-disciplinary study on literature ageing: part II—diachronous aspects. Scientometrics 111, 1559–1572 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2288-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2288-z

Keywords

  • Literature ageing
  • Price Index
  • Prospective Price Index
  • References
  • Citations