Bibliomania: what can we learn from the research literature?

Abstract

The field of bibliometrics provides a set of quantitative methods for understanding how scientific information is created and disseminated by examining the structure, rather than the content, of subject documents. Bibliographic information can be analyzed to give insights into the development of research fronts, methods of scientific communication, and characteristics of the scientific literature. This paper presents three case studies illustrating simple bibliometric techniques, as applied to management/computer science/information systems. These fields have been largely ignored by bibliometricians; an unfortunate omission, given the information on the nature and structure of these fields that bibliometric studies could provide.