First-citation of Journal Articles and Scholarly Communication Speed: A Case Study of IS & LS

Abstract

This study mainly explores scholarly communication speed of journal articles within Library and Information Science based on the first-citation, defined as the time between publication and first citation. The study focuses on the distributions of first-citation speed, first self-citation, and publication patterns. It chooses 30 scholarly journals which are indexed in the category of Information Science &Library Science (IS & LS) in the Journal Citation Report 2005-2012 and analyses 10,287 articles. This study adopts citation analysis to calculate journal articles first-citation speed and journals averaged first-citation speed. Particularly, first-citation differentiates between all articles and citing articles. Results show that the average first-citation speed is about 18.79 months within; for citing articles, it is 14.26 months. In addition, first self-citation may influence on scholarly communication speed. In terms of publication mechanisms, OA articles are slower than non-OA article. The journals with in press mechanism are significantly faster. Based on the results, there are some suggestions as follows. When citing unpublished articles, authors should follow reference guide and note “in press” or related terms in the reference. Besides, for the purpose of scholarly communication unrestricting, journal publishers should encourage authors to submit manuscript to OA journals or publish OA articles. (Article content in Chinese with English extended abstract)

Keywords

• scholarly communication
• first-citation speed
• scholarly journal
• citation analysis