Re: Stepping down as Moderator of American Scientist Open Access
When I think about Stevan Harnad another information pioneer comes to mind. The Belgian documentalist Paul Otlet. His collaborator Henri LaFontaine,  received the Nobel Peace Prize. That's the kind of recognition that Stevan deserves. Eugene Garfield , PhD. email: garfi...@codex.cis.upenn.edu     Â
Re: Open Access Book-Impact and Demotic Metrics
Dear Stevan: In a recent article Peter Jacso estimated that there are over 100,000,000 orphan cited references in the WebofScience. That number is similar to the one I estimated for the number of cited references to books and other non journal references. While I applaud the goal of producing book-to-book citation indexes I question whether that will really change the metrics for most books, especially well cited ones. What is the average number of books that will cite the average scholarly book.? On the other hand the number of citations to books in journal articles may often if not always much larger than book-to-book citations. think that the citation indexes been vastly underutilized. In my own experience it has been quite easy to measure the citation impact of significant books using the WOS files, especially if one is careful to look for the variations in citing the book title. I am surprised at how few have been the studies of these metrics. Even when we have the book citation index scholars should also be aware of the many imporant book reviews that are published. Tens of thousands of these reviews are indexed as sources in the SSCI and AHCI. It is of course distressing to hear social scientists repeat the myth that you can't measure the citation impact of a book because they are not treated as sources in the ISI indexes. Gene Garfield When responding, please attach my original message __ Eugene Garfield, PhD. email: garfi...@codex.cis.upenn.edu home page: www.eugenegarfield.org Tel: 215-243-2205 Fax 215-387-1266 Chairman Emeritus, ISI www.isinet.com 3501 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-3302 President, The Scientist LLC. www.the-scientist.com 400 Market Street, Suite 1250, Philadelphia, PA 19106-2501 Past President, American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIST) www.asist.org From: American Scientist Open Access Forum [mailto:american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org] On Behalf Of Stevan Harnad Sent: Friday, October 10, 2008 10:32 AM To: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org Subject: Open Access Book-Impact and Demotic Metrics For full text click here SUMMARY: Unlike with OA's primary target, journal articles, the deposit of the full-texts of books in Open Access Repositories cannot be mandated, only encouraged. However, the deposit of book metadata + plus + reference-lists can and should be mandated. That will create the metric that the book-based disciplines need most: a book citation index. ISI's Web of Science only covers citations of books by (indexed) journal articles, but book-based disciplines' biggest need is book-to-bookcitations. Citebase could provide that, once the book reference metadata are being deposited in the IRs too, rather than just article postprints. (Google Books and Google Scholar are already providing a first approximation to book citation count.) Analogues of download metrics for books are also potentially obtainable from book vendors, beginning with Amazon Sales Rank. In the Humanities it also matters for credit and impact how much the non-academic (hence non-citing) public is reading their books (Demotic Metrics). IRs can not only (1) add book-metadata/reference deposit to their OA Deposit Mandates, but they can (2) harvest Amazon book-sales metrics for their book metadata deposits, to add to their IR stats. IRs can also already harvestGoogle Books (and Google Scholar) book-citation counts today, as a first step toward constructing a distributed, universal OA book-citation index. The Dublin humanities metrics conference was also concerned about other kinds of online works, and how to measure and credit their impact: Metrics don't stop with citation counts and download counts. Among the many Demotic metrics that can also be counted are link-counts, tag-counts, blog-mentions, and web mentions. This applies to books/authors, as well as to data, to courseware and to other identifiable online resources. We should hasten the progress of book metrics, and that will in turn accelerate the growth in OA's primary target content: journal articles, as well as increasing support for institutional and funder OA Deposit Mandates.
Re: Open Access Book-Impact and Demotic Metrics and book-to-book citation lack of immediacy
One final word--the time delay in the appearance of book to book citations will probably be significantly different. If there were 50 books written on or near a particular topic I would be surprised that there were more than a few books per year citing the target book. So how predictive can that be if you have to wait a decade or more to find out. Let's hope that I am wrong and that like Hot Papers, Hot books will be cited within a relatively short period of time. However, it takes a lot more time and effort to write a book than it does to write an article. I suspect that Hot books will be reviewed frequently within the first two or three years and before the content of the book has an impact on scholarly journal articles. Some hot topics will of course turn up in non-scholarly journals and periodicals and detected in Google searches. -Original Message- From: American Scientist Open Access Forum [mailto:american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org] On Behalf Of Stevan Harnad Sent: Monday, November 03, 2008 7:50 PM To: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org Subject: Re: Open Access Book-Impact and Demotic Metrics On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 5:04 PM, eugene.garfi...@thomsonreuters.com wrote: Dear Stevan: In a recent article Peter Jacso estimated that there are over 100,000,000 orphan cited references in the WebofScience. Dear Gene, I presume that orphan citations means citations BY works that are indexed in WoS TO works that are not indexed in WoS (many of them books). That number is similar to the one I estimated for the number of cited references to books and other non journal references. While I applaud the goal of producing book-to-book citation indexes I question whether that will really change the metrics for most books, especially well cited ones. I suspect you are right, overall (and I've made much the same bet myself). (Compare a book/book citation count to a journal-article/book citation count, and they will turn out to be highly correlated in most fields, depending on how book-based a field is.) But that's why I think it's a better idea to use a whole battery of metrics, rather than just one or a few. All metrics need validation, against what they are meant to predict, field by field, and then it is just a matter of calibrating their weights: In some fields book/book citation counts may have the same predictive power as article/book (or even article/article) citation counts, and in other fields they may have some independent predictive power of their own. What is the average number of books that will cite the average scholarly book.? That depends on the field, but of course it is not the absolute number of citations that matters, but the predictive power of the variance, for example, in predicting RAE peer rankings within a field. On the other hand the number of citations to books in journal articles may often if not always be much larger than book-to-book citations. That again depends on the field. In the humanities, some scholars have told me with great conviction that only books matter, not journal articles. (They probably did not have book *citations* in mind, just book influence and usage, as well as book reviews. But there too I would bet that book citations are highly correlated with influence and usage, as long as we compare only within the same field or subfield, like with like. It is still an empirical question, though, as you say, whether in those same fields article/article and/or article/book citations would not prove just as predictive as book/book citations. I think that the citation indexes been vastly underutilized. In my own experience it has been quite easy to measure the citation impact of significant books using the WOS files, especially if one is careful to look for the variations in citing the book title. You are right that the existing WOS article/book citation counts have been underutilized and should be tested against article/article citation counts, as well as whatever criterion they are used to predict, field by field. I am surprised at how few have been the studies of these metrics. Even when we have the book citation index scholars should also be aware of the many imporant book reviews that are published. Tens of thousands of these reviews are indexed as sources in the SSCI and AHCI. Book review counts will no doubt be useful -- though text-mining and semiometrics might be even more useful there. It is of course distressing to hear social scientists repeat the myth that you can't measure the citation impact of a book because they are not treated as sources in the ISI indexes. Agreed (but that does not mean it would not be useful to collect book/book citations too, by the means I suggested: self-archiving book metadata plus reference lists!) Best wishes, Stevan From: Stevan Harnad Sent: Friday, October 10, 2008 10:32 AM To:
Re: Call for a vote of nonconfidence in the moderator of the AmSci Forum
Having been abroad during the time this controversy began I have had to scan the dozens of messages about Stevan's monitoring of this listserv. I rarely comment on open access but feel that Stevan Harnad has provided us all a remarkable education. One day I am confident he will deservedly be nominated for a prize equivalent to the Nobel for his perseverance and patience in dealing with these issues. Suggestions for improving the listserv procedures are always to be welcomed. But to suggest that anyone else would be more effective is nonsense. Having dealt with hundreds of editors in my career I can say I have never encountered one that was more dedicated and knowledgeable in the areas he has tackled. He is indeed Mr. Open Access. __ Eugene Garfield, PhD. email: garfi...@codex.cis.upenn.edu home page: www.eugenegarfield.org Tel: 215-243-2205 Fax 215-387-1266 -Original Message- From: American Scientist Open Access Forum [mailto:american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org] On Behalf Of Derek Law Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2008 1:12 PM To: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org Subject: Re: Call for a vote of nonconfidence in the moderator of the AmSci Forum I read but don't usually post to this list - but i'm finally goaded to. The list is really useful; stevan is unique and to be cherished even when one disagrees with him. I can think of no one who would put up with this nonsense. I want two votes. One to support Stevan and one to have the moderator close this thread. It's like the besieged settlers under attack who circle the wagons and start shooting inwards! Derk Law -Original Message- From: Tony Hey tony@microsoft.com Sent: 07 October 2008 15:54 To: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org Subject: Re: Call for a vote of nonconfidence in the moderator of the AmSci Forum I absolutely agree with Michael - the list would die without Stevan Tony -Original Message- From: American Scientist Open Access Forum [mailto:american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org] On Behalf Of Michael Eisen Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2008 7:26 AM To: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org Subject: Re: Call for a vote of nonconfidence in the moderator of the AmSci Forum I disagree with Stevan often. He can be infuriating. He has a tendency to bloviate. Nonetheless - he has been a FANTASTIC moderator of this list. I have sent off many posts that have criticized Stevan directly, and he has never failed to send them to the group. I can think of no other list that has not just lasted for 10 years, but kept up a high level of discourse and relevance. Stevan has my complete confidence. The list would die without him. On Oct 7, 2008, at 5:37 AM, Stevan Harnad wrote: On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 3:37 AM, c.oppenh...@lboro.ac.uk c.oppenh...@lboro.ac.uk wrote: I totally support Jean-Claude's view. I can only repeat what I said before: (1) I am happy to put an end to my 10-year moderatorship of the American Scientist Open Access Forum and hand it over to someone else who is willing to do it, but only if it is requested by a plurality of the membership, not if it is merely requested by a few dissatisfied members. (2) The moderator's role is to filter postings, approving the relevant ones, and rejecting the off-topic or ad-hominem ones. (3) Apart from that, the moderator has no special status or authority (other than what may accrue from the substance of his postings), and may post *exactly* as any other poster may post, including the posting of quotes, comments, critiques, elaborations, rebuttals *and summaries*. By my count, there have not been many votes one way or the other, but of the few votes there have been, more seem to be expressing confidence in my moderatorship than those that are calling for me to be replaced. I have also been accused of of censorship, by both Jean-Claude and Sally, the charge being subsequently rescinded. If there are doubts about whether I can be trusted to post or tally the votes -- or, more important, if we are to spare the Forum the bandwidth of votes appearing instead of OA substance -- I am also quite happy to direct the votes to be sent to a trusted 3rd party for tallying, if that is the wish of the Forum. Stevan Harnad Charles Professor Charles Oppenheim Head Department of Information Science Loughborough University Loughborough Leics LE11 3TU Tel 01509-223065 Fax 01509 223053 e mail c.oppenh...@lboro.ac.uk From: American Scientist Open Access Forum [mailto:AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS- fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org] On Behalf Of Jean-Claude Guédon Sent: 06 October 2008 19:00 To: american-scientist-open-access-fo
Re: European Research Council Mandate Green OA Self-Archiving
I think that you should contact Michael Jensen at the National Academies Press who has some experience on these matters. I think that you can download most of their books a few pages at a time and that nevertheless this does not inhibit sales. Best wishes. Gene Garfield -Original Message- From: American Scientist Open Access Forum [mailto:american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org] On Behalf Of Klaus Graf Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2008 1:44 PM To: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org Subject: Re: European Research Council Mandate Green OA Self-Archiving 2008/1/19, Stevan Harnad har...@ecs.soton.ac.uk: (9) Some have suggested that making a book OA online will not hurt but help the sales of the print edition, but this is far from empirically established as the general rule (although it has happened in a few cases). Looking at the evidence at http://del.icio.us/Klausgraf/monograph_open_access it is far from empirically established as the general rule that a book OA online will hurt the sales. Please quote any valid articles or research confirming your prejudice. If you are stating a general rule you have to proof it. Klaus Graf
