Towards complexity-sensitive book metrics for scholarly monographs in national databases for research output

Purpose. We investigate an approach to book metrics for research evaluation that takes into account the complexity of scholarly monographs. This approach is based on work sets—unique scholarly works and their within-work related bibliographic entities—for scholarly monographs in national databases for research output. Design. This study examines bibliographic records on scholarly monographs acquired from four European databases (VABB in Flanders, Belgium, CROSBI in Croatia, CRISTIN in Norway, COBISS in Slovenia). Following a data enrichment process using metadata from OCLC WorldCat and Amazon Goodreads, we identify work sets and the corresponding ISBNs. Next, on the basis of the number of ISBNs per work set and the presence in WorldCat, we design a typology of scholarly monographs: Globally visible single-expression works, Globally visible multi-expression works, Miscellaneous, and Globally invisible works. Findings. Our findings show that the concept ‘work set’ and the proposed typology can aid the identification of influential scholarly monographs in the social sciences and humanities (i.e. the Globally visible multi-expression works). Practical implications. In light of our findings, we outline requirements for the bibliographic control of scholarly monographs in national databases for research output that facilitate the use of the approach proposed here. Originality. We use insights from library and information science (LIS) to construct complexity-sensitive book metrics. In doing so, we, on the one hand, propose a solution to a problem in research evaluation and, on the other hand, bring to attention the need for a dialogue between LIS and neighbouring communities that work with bibliographic data.

Jaar van publicatie:2021

Trefwoorden:A1 Journal article

Toegankelijkheid:Open