How do you do bibliometrics?

There are two general approaches you can take to doing bibliometric evaluation related to your digital library. The first approach would be to borrow the methodologies of citation analysis from traditional library and information science research. Using citation analysis you can determine which authors or documents within your library's collection are most frequently cited. You could then compare these values with established values, such as those determined by the Social Science Citation Index, the Science Citation Index, or the Arts and Humanities Citation Index. Such a comparison could help to serve as a measure of the quality of your library's collection. You could even apply bibliographic methods to see how often and where your digital library itself is cited as an indicator of its importance to a larger community such as educators or researchers.

However, a more useful approach to using bibliometric methods in your digital library evaluation might be to take a more user-centered approach. Bibliometric methods could be used to determine which documents and authors are most frequently accessed, and have the most impact, on your digital library's particular user community. These methods might be applied to specific resources or to collections of resources. The case study described below provides details about this method.