A citation index of Spanish Humanities journals to study the scientific activity of researchers in these disciplines

Abstract

Bibliometric studies based on the analysis of citations have proved interesting in the evaluation of scientific activity from different perspectives. Their use, however, depends on access to data on the bibliography referenced by authors in their papers, information that is rarely included in databases. In fact, the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) is the only institution whose databases contain the bibliographic references cited in the papers indexed (Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index and Arts & Humanities Citation Index) and their coverage of scientific literature published outside Anglo-Saxon countries is limited, particularly in the area of humanities.
For this reason, a multidisciplinary group at Madrid’s Carlos III University undertook a pilot project designed to create a citation index of Spanish humanities journals, specifically in the area of History, to analyse a number of aspects relating to scientific activity in this discipline, such as the authors and sources most often cited, typology of the documentation used, obsolescence of the information or their knowledge of languages. These issues were analysed based on nearly 25.000 bibliographic references cited in papers published by selected Spanish history journals in 1997 and 1998.