Abstract
Subject encyclopedias have long been regarded as authoritative reference works that contain credible and reliable information on a subject area or discipline for use by scholars and researchers. In the digital age, when subject-specific information is readily accessible online for free or through a subscription-based resource, researchers may no longer rely on standard reference sources such as subject encyclopedias. To determine whether subject encyclopedias are used in research, a citation analysis study was conducted using two of the best-known subject encyclopedias relevant to chemists and chemical engineers: the Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology and Ullmann’s Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry. Citations to each encyclopedia were obtained from the Science Citation Index Expanded in Web of Science (WoS) from 2000 to 2015 (inclusive) and compared by document type. Article citations to these encyclopedias were compared by year, journal, country of publication, organizational affiliations, and WoS subject category. Over the sixteen-year period, citations to both encyclopedias have doubled from 943 to 1876 peer-reviewed articles. The study supports the view that such long-standing reference sources are still needed for research and valued by the scientific community despite the availability of online resources. The study used VOSviewer to analyze and compare the key terms in the title and abstract of all articles citing each encyclopedia. This analysis revealed sub-disciplinary differences in the use of the two encyclopedias.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bottle, R. T., & Rowland, J. F. B. (1993). Information sources in chemistry (4th ed.). London: Bowker-Saur.
Chadwick, S. S. (1988). Ullmann’s encyclopedia of industrial chemistry. Reference Services Review, 16(4), 31–34. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb049034.
Chen, C., & Song, M. (2017). Science mapping tools and applications. In Representing scientific knowledge: The role of uncertainty (pp. 57–137). Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
Clarivate Analytics. (2017). Web of Science Core Collection help. Retrieved from https://images.webofknowledge.com/images/help/WOS/hp_subject_category_terms_tasca.html. Accessed 26 June 2018.
Cobo, M. J., López-Herrera, A. G., Herrera-Viedma, E., & Herrera, F. (2011). Science mapping software tools: Review, analysis, and cooperative study among tools. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 62(7), 1382–1402. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.21525.
Craig, C. (2006). Kirk-Othmer encyclopedia of chemical technology and Ullmann’s encyclopedia of industrial chemistry. Issues in Science & Technology Librarianship. https://doi.org/10.5062/F4RF5S0T.
East, J. W. (2010). The rolls royce of the library reference collection: The subject encyclopedia in the age of Wikipedia. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 50(2), 162–169.
Eldridge, R. B. (1998). Book Reviews [Review of the book Ullmann’s Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry, 5th Completely Revised Edition, by B. Elvers, S. S. Hawkins & W. Raussey]. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 120(41), 10792.
Flaxbart, D. (1999). Book Reviews [Review of the book Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, Fourth Edition, 27-Volume Set, by Wiley Interscience]. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 121(10), 2339.
Flaxbart, D. (2004). Death of an encyclopedia salesman? The fate of science reference resources in the digital age. Issues in Science & Technology Librarianship. https://doi.org/10.5062/F4VQ30M9.
Grayson, M., Eckroth, D., & Kromer, R. (1979). The making of an encyclopedia: The 3rd edition of the Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology. Journal of Chemical Information and Computer Sciences, 19(3), 117–122.
Katz, W. A. (1978). Encyclopedias: General and subject. In Introduction to reference work, vol. 1, Basic information sources (3rd ed.) (pp. 173–174). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Kauffman, G. B. (2000). Media Reviews [Review of the book Ullmann’s Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry, Sixth Edition, by T. Kellersohn, B. Elvers, S. Hawkins, & U. Winter]. The Chemical Educator, 5(1), 49–52. http://chemeducator.org/bibs/0005001/510049gk.htm.
Kauffman, G. B. (2007). Media Reviews [Review of the book Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, Fifth Edition, by A. Seidel]. The Chemical Educator, 12(5), 375–377. http://chemeducator.org/bibs/0012005/12070374mr.htm.
Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology. (2017). [Online]. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/book/10.1002/0471238961. Accessed 26 June 2018.
Laird, T. (1997). Book Review [Review of the book Ullmann’s Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry, 5th Edition]. Organic Process Research & Development, 1(5), 391–392. https://doi.org/10.1021/op970020u.
Maizell, R. E. (1998). How to find chemical information: A guide for practicing chemists, educators, and students. New York: Wiley.
Matley, J. (1986). [Review of the book Ullmann’s Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry, 5th Edition, by W. Gerhartz & Y. S. Yamamoto]. Chemical Engineering, 93(8), 95–98.
Pan, X., Yan, E., Cui, M., & Hua, W. (2018). Examining the usage, citation, and diffusion patterns of bibliometric mapping software: A comparative study of three tools. Journal of Informetrics, 12(2), 481–493. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2018.03.005.
Testa, J. (2016). The Web of Science journal selection process. Retrieved from http://wokinfo.com/essays/journal-selection-process/. Accessed 26 June 2018.
Tomaszewski, R. (2017). Citations to chemical resources in scholarly articles: CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics and The Merck Index. Scientometrics, 112(3), 1865–1879. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2437-4.
Tomaszewski, R., & MacDonald, K. I. (2016). A study of citations to Wikipedia in scholarly publications. Science & Technology Libraries, 35(3), 246–261. https://doi.org/10.1080/0194262X.2016.1206052.
Ullmann’s Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry. (2017). [Online]. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/book/10.1002/14356007. Accessed 26 June 2018.
Van Eck, N. J., & Waltman, L. (2010). Software survey: VOSviewer, a computer program for bibliometric mapping. Scientometrics, 84(2), 523–538. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-009-0146-3.
Van Eck, N. J., & Waltman, L. (2014). Visualizing bibliometric networks. In Y. Ding, R. Rousseau, & D. Wolfram (Eds.), Measuring scholarly impact: Methods and practice (pp. 285–320). Berlin: Springer.
Van Eck, N. J., & Waltman, L. (2018). VOSviewer manual. Version 1.6.8 (27 April). Centre for Science and Technology Studies. Leiden, NL: Leiden University. Retrieved from http://www.vosviewer.com/getting-started#VOSviewer%20manual. Accessed 26 June 2018.
Wolman, Y. (1983). Chemical information: A practical guide to utilization. New York: Wiley.
Wolman, Y. (1988). Chemical information: A practical guide to utilization (2nd ed.). New York: Wiley.
Acknowledgements
I thank the reviewers for their insightful and intelligent suggestions with the manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Tomaszewski, R. A comparative study of citations to chemical encyclopedias in scholarly articles: Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology and Ullmann’s Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry. Scientometrics 117, 175–189 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2844-1
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2844-1