Skip to main content

Advertisement

Springer Nature Link
Log in

Applications and researches of geographic information system technologies in bibliometrics

  • Review Article
  • Published:
Earth Science Informatics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Although the research and application of a geographic information system (GIS) in bibliometrics remains in its initial stage, several valuable attempts have been made in recent years. This paper provides our overview regarding this area. We first reviewed the spatial information mining derived from literature, including structured and unstructured data. The spatial display and the basic spatial operations for the geographic information derived from literature were then introduced, demonstrating that GIS can be directly used to construct digital libraries. Some literature database websites have begun to utilize WEBGIS to display the spatial distribution of an author’s location. Additionally, the spatial distribution information can be displayed in various modes with other specialized tools. Potential spatial analyses in bibliometrics were then discussed, introducing geostatistical and buffer analyses as case studies. Finally, several bibliometric indicators attached with research units were investigated. When the quantitative research index units are linked with the research spatial position, they can be displayed, queried and retrieved spatially. Future work to advance the application and research of GIS in bibliometrics is still warranted.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Explore related subjects

Discover the latest articles and news from researchers in related subjects, suggested using machine learning.

References

  • Ahlgren P, Persson O, Tijssen R (2013) Geographical distance in bibliometric relations within epistemic communities. Scientometrics 95:771–784

    Google Scholar 

  • Allen RS (2001) Interdisciplinary research: a literature-based examination of disciplinary intersections using a common tool, geographic information system (GIS). Sci Technol Libr 21(3–4):191–209

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Allison W, Christian P (1994) GIPSY: automated geographic indexing of text documents. J Am Soc Inf Sci 45:645–655

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ancona D, Freeston M, Smith T, Fabrikant S (2002) Visual explorations for the Alexandria digital earth prototype. Börner K and Chen C (Eds.): visual Interfaces to digital libraries, LNCS 2539, pp. 199–213

  • Barbara PB (1998) Looking forwards: geographic information services and library in the future. Cartogr Geogr Inf Syst 25:161–171

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barbara LH (2010) Global networks in W.G. Sebald’s Rings of Saturn. In The Undiscover’d Country: W.G. Sebald and the Poetics of Travel (ed.) Markus Zisselsberger. New York

  • Bellis DN (2009) Bibliometrics and citation analysis: from the Science citation index to cybermetrics. Scarecrow Press, pp. 417

  • Bensalem I, Kholladi MK (2010) Toponym disambiguation by arborescent relationships. J Comput Sci 6:653–659

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bishop BW, Mandel LH (2010) Utilizing geographic information systems (GIS) in library research. Libr Hi Tech 28(4):536–547

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Börner K (2011) Plug-and-play macroscopes. Commun ACM 54(3):60–69

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Börner K, Chen C, Boyack KW (2003) Visualizing knowledge domains. Annu Rev Inf Sci Technol 37:179–255

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bornmann L, Leydesdorff L (2011) Which cities produce worldwide excellent papers more than expected? A new mapping approach—using Google Maps—based on statistical significance testing. J Am Soc Inf Sci Technol 62:1954–1962

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bornmann L, Leydesdorff L (2012) Which cities’ paper output and citation impact are above expectation in information science? Some improvements of our previous mapping approaches. J Informetrics 6:336–345

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bornmann L, Waltman L (2011) The detection of “hot regions” in the geography of science—A visualization approach by using density maps. J Informetrics 5:547–553

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bornmann L, Mutz R, Daniel HD (2008) Are there better indices for evaluation purposes than the h-index A comparison of nine different variants of the h index using data from biomedicine. J Am Soc Inf Sci Technol 59:830–837

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bornmann L, Leydesdorff L, Walch-Solimena C, Ettl C (2011) Mapping excellence in the geography of the sciences: an approach made possible by using Scopus data. J Informetrics 5:537–546

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bornmann L, Moya-Anegón F, Leydesdorff L (2012) The new excellence indicator in the world report of the SCImago institutions rankings 2011. J Informetrics 6(2):333–335

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cai G (2002) GeoVIBE: a visual interface to geographic digital library. Proceedings of Visual Interfaces to Digital Libraries, pp, 171–187, Portland

  • Carvalho R, Batty M (2006) The geography of scientific productivity: scaling in US computer science. J Stat Mech: Theor Exp 2006(10):P10012

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chen C, Song IY, Yuan X, Zhang J (2008) The thematic and citation landscape of data and knowledge engineering (1985–2007). Data Knowl Eng 67:234–259

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • French M (1999) The ARL GIS literacy project: support for government data services in the digital library. From http://www.iassistdata.org/downloads/iqvol241french.pdf

  • Frenken K, Hardeman S, Hoekman J (2009) Spatial scientometrics: towards a cumulative research program. J Informetrics 3:222–232

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Garfield E (1998) The impact factor and using it correctly. Unfallchirurg 101:413–414

    Google Scholar 

  • Glänzel W (2002) Journal impact measures in bibliometric research. Scientometrics 53(2):171–193

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hassan S, Haddawy P (2013) Measuring international knowledge flows and scholarly impact of scientific research. Scientometrics 97:163–179

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hengl T, Minasny B, Gould M (2009) A geostatistical analysis of geostatistics. Scientometrics 80(2):491–514

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hirsch JE (2005) An index to quantify an individual’s scientific research output. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 102:16569–16572

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leidner JL (2007) Toponym resolution in text: annotation, evaluation and applications of spatial grounding of place names. Dissertation.com, ISBN: 978–1581123845., pp 289

  • Leydesdorff L, Bornmann L (2012) Mapping (USPTO) patent data using overlays to Google maps. J Am Soc Inf Sci Technol 63(7):1442–1458

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leydesdorff L, Persson O (2010) Mapping the geography of science: distribution patterns and networks of relations among cities and institutes. J Am Soc Inf Sci Technol 61:1622–1634

    Google Scholar 

  • Liu L, Wang XY, Li Y (2008) Research on the digital library construction based on GIS. J Inf 1:133–135

    Google Scholar 

  • Ma D, Meng L (2009) The change of the number of troops in the Space Time Cube for the Red Army Long March. Proceedings of International Symposium on Spatial Analysis, Spatial-Temporal Data Modeling, and Data Mining (ISSA 2009) (pp. 74720X, 1–10). Wuhan

  • Ma TC, Cao MK, Wang GF (2011) Analysis of the regional competitiveness of basic research in China based on the National Natural Science Fundation of China. Chin Sci Bull (Chinese Ver) 56:3115–3121

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Olechnicka A, Ploszaj A (2010) Mapping the regional science performance evidence from Poland. Collnet J Scientometrics Inf Manag 4:21–27

    Google Scholar 

  • Pouliquen B, Kimler M, Steinberger R, et al. (2006) Geocoding multilingual texts: Recognition, disambiguation and visualisation. Proceedings of LREC-2006, pp, 53–58

  • Pritchard A (1969) Statistical bibliography or bibliometrics? J Doc 25:348–349

    Google Scholar 

  • Schreiber M (2008) A modification of the h-index: the hm-index accounts for multi-authored manuscripts. J Informetrics 2:211–216

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith T, Andresen D, Carver L, Dolin R, Fischer C, Frew J, Goodchild M, Ibarra O, Kemp R, Kothuri R, Larsgaard M, Manjunath B, Nebert D, Simpson J, Wells A, Yang T, Zheng Q (1996) A digital library for geographically referenced materials. Comput (IEEE) 29(5):54–60

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Van Eck NJ, Waltman L (2010) Software survey: VOSviewer, a computer program for bibliometric mapping. Scientometrics 84:523–538

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vanclay JK (2012) Impact factor: outdated artefact or stepping-stone to journal certification. Scientometrics 92:211–238

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vinkler P (2010) Indicators are the essence of scientometrics and bibliometrics comments to the book entitled “bibliometrics and citation analysis, from the science citation index to cybermetrics from Nicola De bellis”. Scientometrics 85:861–866

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang XM, Ma MG (2009) Spatial information mining and visualization for Qinghai-Tibet Plateau’s literature based on GIS. Proceedings of International Symposium on Spatial Analysis, Spatial-Temporal Data Modeling, and Data Mining (ISSA 2009) (pp. 74920T, 1–8). Wuhan

  • Wang XM, Li X, Ma MG, Zhang ZQ (2012) Spatial analysis on the geographical information of the scientific literature for qinghai-tibet plateau. Adv Earth Sci 27:1288–1294

    Google Scholar 

  • Woodruff AG, Paunt C (1994) GIPSY: automatic geographical indexing of documents. J Am Soc Inf Sci Technol 45:645–655

    Google Scholar 

  • Wu J (2013) Geographical knowledge diffusion and spatial diversity citation rank. Scientometrics 94:181–201

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhao RY, Xu LM (2010) The knowledge map of the evolution and research frontiers of the bibliometrics. J Libr Sci China 36:60–68

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Wang Xuemei, Ma Mingguo & Li Xin

  2. Lanzhou Branch of the National Science Library, Scientific Information Center for Resources and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Wang Xuemei & Zhang Zhiqiang

Authors
  1. Wang Xuemei
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  2. Ma Mingguo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  3. Li Xin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  4. Zhang Zhiqiang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ma Mingguo.

Additional information

Communicated by: H. A. Babaie

Foundation item

Under the Special Project of Literature Ability of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no.: 40701133).

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Xuemei, W., Mingguo, M., Xin, L. et al. Applications and researches of geographic information system technologies in bibliometrics. Earth Sci Inform 7, 147–152 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12145-013-0132-4

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12145-013-0132-4

Keywords