The potential for bibliometric methods such as those used in this paper are great.  Bibliometric studies can offer in-depth information on everything from the journal level down to the author and document level.  In each instance, a close examination can reveal trends in a given discipline and insight that would be difficult to gain otherwise.  Something of the communication patterns between scholars can be surmised through bibliometrics, and the study of specific journals or articles contribute to a more thorough understanding of one or multiple fields of study.

Bibliometrics is mostly based upon citations, found in the reference section of articles.  These notations refer to past works that were consulted during the literature search component of researching.  The vast majority of data can be extracted from these citations as they form invisible networks between papers, authors, and publications.  However, bibliometrics is not limited only to citations.  Author affiliations, for example, can show additional links between institutions and countries.   

The successful discovery of scholarly patterns is made possible in part by technical advancements.  Now, for instance, citations can be linked to bibliographic records so one can see who is citing whom in an instant.  Yet it is technology that is one of the greatest hindrances of bibliometric analysis.  Or, probably more accurately, it is humans who are unable to keep pace with the speed of technology or with the glut of output from other humans.

While ISI made it much easier to analyze citations and to recognize patterns, the fact of the matter is that it is humans that keep it current and up to date, in so far as it is possible.  It has its limitations in terms of scope.  It would be a great feat indeed to include every journal, past and present, in the database.  While it offers a great many choices, it does not cover every scholarly publication.  Therefore, some information is naturally lost.  Authors who have submitted articles to these journals will not have these peripheral works included in their bibliometric profile.

To further elucidate on the limitations of ISI in giving an accurate and complete picture of scholarly communication patterns, one need look no further than the focus of this paper.  As was apologetically stated several times, Marine Geodesy is only included in the database for a decade.  Detailed information from the introduction of the journal to 1980, and everything after 1989, is not readily available.  In its stead, some valuable insight was gained by accessing the journal directly.  How Marine Geodesy relates to other scholarly publications is easy enough to gather by looking for common titles in the references.  This is a one-sided view, however, and ignores how other journals are influenced by Marine Geodesy.  Who cited the journal during these years and how many times?  Without an answer to this question, it is difficult to properly assess the impact of the journal in the field of geosciences.

Similar quandaries present themselves in creating a bibliometric profile.  O.P. Singh was cited the most in Marine Geodesy during those years, but this is all the certainty that can be mustered.  His relationship to the citing authors, their affiliation, and the journal from which they cite is known.  With this is mind, one has to wonder how many additional articles are unavailable in ISI.  Would another researcher come forth as being particularly influential to his work?  Perhaps a paper would make an additional connection between Singh and another individual that might reveal an interesting relationship between the co-cited pair.  Viewing all the articles available through ISI did provide some of these important relationships, but it cannot be completely accurate or thorough.

Both human error and practice also present potential problems for successful bibliometric analysis.  In keeping with the ALA style, full first and middle names are not available in the database.  Thus, the author is known only by his or her last name followed by one or more initials.  Author homonyms are the exact same name for more than one person and a decided limitation in ISI.  Again, Singh’s case illustrates the difficulty that arises when names are not used for only one author.  It was often hard to isolate this O.P. Singh from author homonyms that were included in the search results.  There is an O.P. Singh in the field of chemistry.  Another O.P. Singh resides in India and is involved in geology.  It requires caution to sift through author homonyms to reveal the identity of the author who is being sought.

Even with all the inherent frustrations that arise when technology and human intellectual progress are not synchronous, the potential for bibliometric methods is immense and exciting.  A journal is transformed into something other than a static form of communication with sporadic contact only between author and reader.  Citations themselves become the undercurrent of a constant give and take that transcends national borders, academic disciplines and time.  While these patterns are not immediately apparent to the untrained eye, they are no less important and telling.  A single article, at its inception, enters into the collective knowledge base of a discipline.  It might be later praised, refuted, or otherwise used by others.  In any case, its echo carries and bounces to each successive article.  Every time an author somehow incorporates the work of another into his or her own, there is evidence of communication.

Patterns begin to emerge as the trail of citations grows.  The most readily available result is to discover which journals or which authors are most influential in a particular field.  However, more subtle associations can be made as well. In forming a bibliometric profile, a person’s interests are deduced by their image and identity.  It will be revealed if only a few voices predominantly color their research or if they are more expansive and scattered in their references.  In his discussion on CAMEOs (or Characterizations Automatically Made and Edited Online), White (2001a) said that they are “sociocognitive measures, with the potential for making scientometrics both sociological (through study of networks of authors, which may include “interest groups” of sorts) and more psychological (through studies of authors as they prioritize topics and genres over time)” (p. 634).

This paper, in lieu of adequate citation information for the selected journal, focused mostly on demographics in the bibliometric analysis portion.  By studying affiliations, connections were made between countries.  Also, it showed which regions are generally involved in marine geodesy. 

Webmetrics is another form of analysis that is compiled from transaction logs.  It can reveal the total number of hits for a website, or how many times a particular page was viewed.  It can also yield information on what topics are most popular.  In addition, it could track which websites referred the user to the page being studied.  The measurement would offer another dimension to the study of scholarly communication: usage. 

One interesting possibility of webmetrics might be in comparing use to production.  For instance, if such technology could be used to study Elsevier journals or other subscriptions services available online, would the most accessed full-text pdf files also be among the most cited in later articles?  It could be used to better understand how scholars conduct research and how they determine which sources are the most meaningful to their own studies.  There are obvious limitations to this, though: not all research needs to be done on the web.  There is more than one way of acquiring resources, print and electronic alike.

The near future holds promise of an even more direct way of linking webmetrics with bibliometrics.  Thomson, who is known for enabling study of citation patterns through ISI, is working with CiteSeer to create an index for freely available research materials.  According to Barbara Quint (2004), they will “create a comprehensive, multidisciplinary citation index for Web-based scholarly resources. Due out in early 2005, the new Web Citation Index will tap a number of technologies developed by NEC, primarily the ‘autonomous citation indexing’ tools of NEC’s CiteSeer software” (para 1).

Webmetrics can be used to track usage, which is something current bibliometric technology only infers based on final products.  When the citations are transformed into hypertext, other valuable data can be examined.  Naturally, the sources that are most used can be identified by the number of hits.  The referring page comes into play as well; what path does a user take in finding pertinent research?  From which references does a person begin, and where does it lead?  All this information and more is embedded within the transaction logs, which will reveal searching and usage patterns that can also contribute to bibliometric analyis.

The depths of these measurements, bibliometrics in particular, are far reaching and all encompassing.  They can be used to study trends in journals, and can also focus in on the author level.  While there will never likely be a fool-proof way of accessing information for the whole gamut of publications and individuals, it still offers us a clearer view of the many facets of scholarly communication.  Bibliometrics proves that research is a cooperative and social endeavor that is worth additional time and study.