2017/10/11 by Thomas Franssen, Franssen, Thomas, Paul Wouters +1
Decision Sciences · Social Sciences · #Corruption and Economic Development #Digital Libraries (cs.DL) #FOS: Computer and information sciences #scientometrics and bibliometrics research
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1710.04004
openalex publication_date 2017/10/11 · openalex created_date 2022/10/01 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Bibliometrics offers a particular representation of science. Through\nbibliometric methods a bibliometrician will always highlight particular\nelements of publications, and through these elements operationalize particular\nrepresentations of science, while obscuring other possible representations from\nview. Understanding bibliometrics as representation implies that a bibliometric\nanalysis is always performative: a bibliometric analysis brings a particular\nrepresentation of science into being that potentially influences the science\nsystem itself. In this review we analyze the ways the humanities have been\nrepresented throughout the history of bibliometrics, often in comparison to\nother scientific domains or to a general notion of the sciences. Our review\ndiscusses bibliometric scholarship between 1965 and 2016 that studies the\nhumanities empirically. We distinguish between two periods of bibliometric\nscholarship. The first period, between 1965 and 1989, is characterized by a\nsociological theoretical framework, the development and use of the Price index,\nand small samples of journal publications as data sources. The second period,\nfrom the mid-1980s up until the present day, is characterized by a new\nhinterland, that of science policy and research evaluation, in which\nbibliometric methods become embedded.\n