Would I be very cynical to ask whether those who cite articles have necessarily always read them?
Sally Sally Morris, Secretary-General Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3UU, UK Phone: 01903 871686 Fax: 01903 871457 E-mail: [email protected] ALPSP Website http://www.alpsp.org Learned Publishing is now online, free of charge, at www.learned-publishing.org ----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: 25 January 2001 19:57 Subject: Re: Survey: How many refereed journals can your library NOT afford? > One way to estimate the percentage of Pay-Per-View is to study the cited > literature. > > This study was done by my colleague Patricia Volland-Nail for the > articles published in our laboratory by 65 researchers studying > domestic animal reproductive physiology and behaviour. Our lab is > organized into 8 teams. Our library subscribes to 94 periodicals. The > study was for the period 1996-1999 (4 years). > > > Patricia used Science Citation Index and found 298 indexed articles > published by the researchers from our lab. These 298 articles generated > 12167 citations in 1751 differents sources (periodicals, > proceedings...) > > The 20 most cited periodicals were cited 4983 times (41% of total > citations). The 3 most cited periodicals were cited 766, 757, 703 times > and the 20th, 107 times. > > Of these 20 top periodicals, two are not in our library: Brain Research > and Journal of Comparative Neurology. Each costs about $13 000. (This > is perhaps not the precise price, but I was obliged to convert from > french francs). > > We counted the number of cited periodicals by > each team (minimum 4 times for 4 years). > > T1 cited 20 periodicals: 6 were not it our library : 30% > T3 cited 47 periodicals: 20 were not in our libraty : 42% > T4 cited 47 periodicals: 23 were not in our library : 49% > T5 cited 45 periodicals: 13 were not in our library : 29% > T6 cited 26 periodicals: 7 were not in our library : 37% > T7 cited 57 periodicals: 17 were not in our library :30% > T8 cited 48 periodicals: 17 were not in our library : 35% > > (Note that accessing only the "top periodicals" may be restrictive > for the mind. Often these periodicals merely happen to follow a > "fashion". I have two examples in my lab of "success" or progress in > research through using a very inusual literature. First, a researcher > found the solution to his problem concerning spermatogenesis by looking > at a vegetal model in the vegetal literature. Second, accessing a very > original russian litterature concerning behavior and genetics made > possible a new form of research in the study of domestic animal > behaviour.) > > Helene Bosc > Bibliotheque > Unite Physiologie de la Reproduction > et des Comportements > UMR 6073 INRA-CNRS-Universite F. Rabelais > 37380 Nouzilly > France > > http://www.tours.inra.fr/ > TEL : 02 47 42 78 00 > FAX : 02 47 42 77 43 > e-mail: [email protected]
