2024/04/09 by Simon Porter, Porter, Simon J, Daniel Hook +1
Arts and Humanities · Computer Science · Decision Sciences · #Academic Writing and Publishing #Digital Libraries (cs.DL) #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Library Science and Information Systems #scientometrics and bibliometrics research
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2404.06500
openalex publication_date 2024/04/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Bibliographic data is a rich source of information that goes beyond the use cases of location and citation -- it also encodes both cultural and technological context. For most of its existence, the scholarly record has changed slowly and hence provides an opportunity to gain insight through its reflection of the cultural norms of the research community over the last four centuries. While it is often difficult to distinguish the originating driver of change, it is still valuable to consider the motivating influences that have led to changes in the structure of the scholarly record. An "initial era" is identified during which initials were used in preference to full names by authors on scholarly communications. Causes of the emergence and demise of this era are considered as well as the implications of this era on research culture and practice.