Empirical Hyperbolic Distributions (Bradford‐Zipf‐Mandelbrot) for Bibliometric Description and Prediction

1969/04/01 by ROBERT A. FAIRTHORNE, R. A. Fairthorne · 238 citations
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Mathematics · #Artificial intelligence #Bibliometrics #Chatterjee #Class (philosophy) #Complex Systems and Time Series Analysis #Computer science #Econometrics #Empirical research #Field (mathematics) #Fractal #Informetrics #Library science #Mandelbrot set #Mathematical economics #Mathematics #Paraphrase #Pure mathematics #Sociology #Statistics #Zipf's law

paper · doi:10.1108/eb026481

published in Journal of Documentation 25(4), 319-343 (Emerald Publishing Limited)

openalex publication_date 1969/04/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/21

Abstract

Since 1960, and especially during the past three years, many papers have appeared about particular manifestations and applications of a certain class of empirical laws to a field that may be labelled conveniently ‘Bibliometrics’. This term, resuscitated by Alan Pritchard (see page 348), denotes, in my paraphrase, quantitative treatment of the properties of recorded discourse and behaviour appertaining to it.

Citations

• BRADFORD'S LAW OF SCATTERING
• The Variation of Certain Speculative Prices

Cited by

• ‘Informatics’
• Benford's law from 1881 to 2006
• Toward a definition of “bibliometrics”
• A unified model for informetrics based on the wave and heat equations
• A Universal Rank-Size Law
• A joint text mining-rank size investigation of the rhetoric structures of the US Presidents’ speeches
• Multiple search methods for similarity-based virtual screening: analysis of search overlap and precision. [europepmc]
• A Universal Rank-Size Law. [europepmc]
• Urban Food Systems: A Bibliometric Review from 1991 to 2020. [europepmc]
• Exploring Topics in Bibliometric Research Through Citation Networks and Semantic Analysis. [europepmc]
• Evaluating Bibliometrics Reviews: A Practical Guide for Peer Review and Critical Reading. [europepmc]

Related

• Empirical hyperbolic distributions (Bradford‐Zipf‐Mandelbrot) for bibliometric description and prediction
• Citations and the Zipf-Mandelbrot's law
• 1.1 A Historical Overview of Bibliometrics
• We cite as we communicate: A communication model for the citation process
• Bibliometrics: Methods for studying academic publishing