Page 13 - Becoming Metric Wise

2 Becoming Metric-Wise

science makes use of measurements of library-related objects and facts,
and leads to law-like relations. According to Otlet, bibliometrics must
include single objects as well as groups of objects (and hence makes use of
statistics). Relations between key aspects must give rise to indices.
Moreover, sociometric aspects must be taken into account. As an exam-
ple, Otlet mentions that one should measure how often a book or an
author is read. Mathematics must find its place in this new field. Otlet
observed that in his time scientific fields tended to use more and more
mathematics (physics, chemistry, biology, sociology, economics) and
regretted its total absence in library science. Clearly, his ideas preceded
similar ones published by Pritchard (1969) by more than 35 years.
Indeed, unaware of Otlet’s work, Pritchard (1969) wrote: “Bibliometrics
is the application of mathematics and statistical methods to books and other media
of communication. It is the metrology of the information transfer process; its pur-
pose is analysis and control of the process. In short: bibliometrics is the scientific
study of recorded discourse”. Pritchard coined the term bibliometrics—or at
least he thought he did—to replace the term “statistical bibliography”
which had been in some use, but which was not popular, not very
descriptive, and could be confused with bibliographies on statistics.
Around 1948, Ranganathan proposed the term librametrics (librametry),
but this proposal has never caught on outside India.
A related term, namely scientometrics (naukometria in Russian), a term
proposed by Nalimov (Nalimov & Mul’chenko, 1969), is defined as the
study of the quantitative aspects of science as a discipline or economic
activity. It includes research evaluation and aspects of research policy.
Yet, we note that nowadays the terms bibliometrics and scientometrics
are used by many colleagues without any differentiation. As such, not
trying to win a lost battle, we too will treat these two terms as
synonyms.
The revolution in information and communications technology
(ICT), including the rise of the Internet, changed the way scientists per-
formed research and communicated their results. Consequently in 1979
the new term informetrics was proposed by Blackert and Siegel (1979) on
the one hand, and by Nacke (1979) on the other. The term gained popu-
larity by the organization of biennial international conferences of which
the first was organized in 1987 in Belgium (Egghe & Rousseau, 1988,
1990). The foundation of the International Society for Scientometrics
and Informetrics (ISSI) in 1993 under the impetus of Hildrun
Kretschmer increased the popularity of the term.