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Whatever happened to Garfield’s constant?

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Abstract

The ratio of the total number of citations to the total number of cited papers was called “Garfield’s Constant” in some of the earlier works of Eugene Garfield. Later, he himself realized that the ratio is changing over time, but still was confident that behind this ratio some deeper regularity may be found. In the present paper a systematic analysis of this indicator, the Garfield Ratio is attempted. Its application in journal-level analysis is presented.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Library and Information Center, Budapest, Hungary

    András Schubert

  2. Stockholm University Library, Stockholm, Sweden

    Gábor Schubert

Authors
  1. András Schubert
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  2. Gábor Schubert
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Correspondence to András Schubert.

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Schubert, A., Schubert, G. Whatever happened to Garfield’s constant?. Scientometrics 114, 659–667 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2527-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2527-3

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