JOURNALS MOST CITED BY CHEMISTS AND CHEMICAL ENGINEERS RICHARD I. BARRETT and MILDRED A. BARRETT New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, State College, New Mexico
IN YEARS
PAST several statistical studies of the frequency of citations to various chemical journals have been made. These studies have served as a guide to the publications most useful to the research worker and the student. In libraries, they have been an aid in journal selection and instructors have used them to appraise the value of foreign languages t o the worker in chemistry and allied fields. Among the most interesting of the earlier studies are one by Patterson1 dealing with oitations in Indzlstrial and Engineering Chemistry for 1939, and one by Sheppard2 covering the Journal of the .American Chemical Society for 1933. Other recent studies in this field include two papers by Roig and Howertona which survey chemical periodicals in the fields of analytical and organic chemistry, and one by Fussler4 covering research literature in hotb physics and chemistry. The purpose of this paper is to present up-to-date material to indicate some of the changes that have taken place during and since World War 11. For purposes of comparison, the work of Patterson and Sheppard is represented in abbreviated form in Tables 1 and 2. The rcsults of our own study are presented as Tables 3 and 4. The reader can draw several obvious conclusions. A.bont half of all the citations in Tables 3 and 4 are to papers published in the 1950's. This, in part, reflects t,he present highly vigorous state of chemical investigation and its rapid expansion in recent years. Another striking fact is that in the J o u m l of the American Chemical Society, 39.5% of the citations are to previous work published in the journal itself. In Industrial and Engifleering Chemistry, the percentage of self citations is 21.3. To some extent this may result from the fact that mriters who habitually publish in a particular journal tend to cite their own work. However, it seems to reflect to a greater extent the dominance of these journals in their respective fields. More than 38% of the citations in Industrial and Engineering Chemistry are to various American Chemical Society publications. In the Journal of the American Chemical Society more than 45% of the citations are to Society publications. Perhaps the most significant change in chemical literature during the last twenty years or so is the relative declime in the positions of Germany and the German language. In 1955 oniy 7.3% of the citations in Industrial and Engineering Chemistry and 13.3% of the citat,ions in the Journal of the American Chemical Society
PAT~ERSON, A. M.. J . CHEM.EDUC.,22, 514 (1045).
' SBEPP~RD, 0.E., J. CHEM.EDUC.,12,472 (1935). ' Bo~o,F. S., AND P. W. H o ~ R ~Sn'ace, N , 115,25 (1952): Sciace 115, 555 (1952). ' FUSSLER,H. H., Lib. Q. 19,19-35, Jan., 119-43, April (1949). VOLUME 34, NO. 1, JANUARY, 1957
TABLE 1 JoulnalCitationsinlndustri(~IendEngineering Chemistry for 1939, Adaptad from Patterson' 1. Ind. En Chem 2 . J. Am. 8hem. sic. 3. J . Soo. Chem. Ind. (Chemistwand
581 176
Industry)
4-. Re,
5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29.
J . Chem. Soc. Anal. Ed., Ind. Eng. Chem. Ruhber Chem. Tech. J. Phys. Chem. Trans. Am. Inst. Chem. Engrs. Chem. and Met. Eng. U. S. Bur. Mines Poh. Colloid 2. Ann. Sewage Works J . J . Soe. Chem. Ind. Jspan Fuel J. Bid. Chem. Prac. Roy. Soc. London J. Am. Waterworks Assoc. India Rubber J. J. Res. Natl. Bur. Standards Proo. Am. Soc. Testing Materide Comot. rend. Z. p6ysik. Chem. Elm. Eng. Phys. Rev. Rec. trav. chim. Bull. soc. chim. J . Chem. Phvs. 483 others Total
Country 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
United States Germany Grest Britain France
Russia Japan Netherlands Italy Cansdx India
Others
3159
Periodi-
Citations
cals
237 78 71 24 24 14 7 11 4 6 22
'
1919 443
60.8% 14.0% 14.0% 3.0% 2.3% 1.7% 09'% 0.6yi 05%
443 94 71 52 29
16
17 13
0.4%
.59
originate from Germany. Sheppard's figures for 1936 are not strictly comparable since they are based on language rather than country hut the change is none the less striking. That this change is not entirely due to an alleged tendency of American writers to overlook foreign literature is indicated by the figures in Table 5 which show the origin of the abstracts in Chemical Abstracts during the last twenty years. It would appear from these figures that American writers do indeed pass over much of the foreign literature, but that Russia, France, Italy, and Japan, rather than Germany and Great ~ r i k i nare , tThr vounrrirs mohr elighted. Todsv. as i n 1935, .\rnori~.anscirntisrssrillnerd Grrmnn. brn ;I widw '
TABLE 2 Journal Citations in the Journal of t h e American Chemical Soeietv for 1933. Adapted from S h e ~ ~ a r d ~ 1. J. Am. Chem. Sac. 2. Ber. 3. J. Chem. Soe.
4. Ann. 5. Z. physik. Chem. ti. J . l'hys. Chem. 7 l'hva - -.>-- H"~ 8: Ind. Eng. Chem. 9. Z. anorg. allgem. Chem. 10. Compt. rend. 11. Rec.trav. chim. 12. Proc. Roy. Soc. London 13. J. Biol. Chem. 14. J. pmkt. Chem. 15. Trans. Faraday Soc. 16. Rnll. 8°F. rhim. 19. 20. 21. 22.
23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.
Chem. Rev. Am. Chem. J. Z. Physik Graze. chim. ital. 2. Elektrachem. Physik. Z. Phil. Mag. J. Russ. I'hvs. Chem. Soe. Nature Ann. Physik Z. Physiol. Chem. Chem. Zentr. -
Total Ry languages: English German French Italian ltussian Spanish .Javanese Multilingonl Mise.
5410 2494 2104 424 63 40 10 !I 81 185
46.1% 38.8% 7.8% 1.1% 0 . 7YG 0.2% 0.2% 1.5% 3.4y0
knowledge of Russian, Japanese, Italian, and other languages is needed as well. It is our hope that Tables 3 and 1 mill be useful to librarians as a guide to the journals most likely to be used by their readers. Obviously these lists cannot serve as the sole criterion for journal selection in chemistry. Nevertheless, when allowance is made for local situations, the tables, along with those of Boig and Ilowerton, should be helpful. When duplications of titles in the two tables aretaken into account it mould appear that a comparatively small list of journals would provide the references most likely to be requested. Furthermore, it would appear that the older literature is used with relative infrequency and the utility of completing back files might in some cases be questioned. However, the references in the less frequently cited journals may be of primary importance to the researcher. The difficulty of providing superior coverage of the journal literature is apparent from Table 3. If we assume, for purposes of illustration, that we need only the journals cited in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, me could obtain 25% of all the references from the five most recent volumes of the Journal itself. However, to obtain 50y0 of the references we would need about 70 annual volumes of assorted journals, while to improve the coverage to 75% would require more than 500 volumes of some 20 odd titles. As coverage approaches completeness, cost and library shelf space increase at a fantastic rate. Even when allowance is made for duplication of titles in Tables 3 and 4 it appears that more than 400 journals are cited in the six issues of Industrial and gngineering Chemistry and the four issues of the Journal of the American Chemiml Society included in our survey. Many of these are cited only once or twice. Chemical Abstracts
TABLE 3 Journal Citations in industrial a n d Engineering Chemistry, July thmugh December, 1955 (Not Including Review Issue)
-
Told
-
Dates by decades 1950's
1940'8
1930's
I9ZO's
1910's
---Before 1900's 1900
1. Ind. Eng. Chem. 2. J. Am. Chem. Soc
3. Chem. Eng. Prog. 4. J. Polymer Sci. 5 . J. Chem. Soc. 6 . J. Chem. l'hys. 7. And. Chem. (incl. Anal. Ed., Ind. Eng. Chem.) 8. Trans. Faraday Soo. 9. Rubber Chem. Tech. 10. 3. Phvs. Chem. 11. I'roe.'noy. Soo. London 12. Ber. (incl. Chem. Ber.) 13. Chem. Eng. 14. Chem. Eng. News 15. Trans. Am. Inst. Mining Met. Engrs. 16. J. Res. Natl. Bur. Standards
36
JOmNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION
-Before
Dates by demdes
(Ihble 3 eatinued) Journal
27. India Rubber World 28. OfficialDigest Federation of Paint and Varnish Production Clubs 29. Phys. Rev. 30. Tmns. Am. Soc. Mech. Engrs. 31. 2. nnorg. u. allgem. Chem. 241 others Total Countries
Total
1960's
19LO's
1930's
1920's
1761
818
-
-
556
237
81
Journals
1910's 1920's
23
19W
23
23
Citations
United States Great Britain CTermnv France
Total
TABLE 4 Journal Citations i n t h e Journal o f t h e American Chemical Society, July 5 a n d 20, August 5 and 20, 1955
Journal
Total
1960's
1940's
1.930's
1980's
1910's
. 1900's
Bejow 1900
J. Am. Chem. Soc.
J. Chem. Soc. Ber. (incl. Chem. Ber.) J . Biol. Chem. Helv. Chim. Acta
Biochem. J. Nature Chem. Rev. Compt. rend. Bull. soc. chim. France Sciencz Arch. Bioehem. Biophys. (incl. Arch. Biochem.) 2. physik. Chem. Trans. Faraday Soc. Experientia J. prakt. Chem. (now 3. Makromol. Chem.) Canadian J. Chem. Ind. Eng. Chem. 182 others Total Count7ies
.Journals
Citations
United States Great Britain Germany Switserland France Netherlands Russia Italy Japan Canada India Others
59 29 31 2 i0 5 8 5 9 2 7 26 193 10
2562 593 560 158 103 63 37 23 24 24 21 59
Tota! , Mdt~hngual
VOLUME 34. NO. 1, JANUARY, 1957
-
60.7% 14.070 13.3% 4.2% 2.4% 1.5% 0 9% 0.5% 0.5% 0.5% 0.5% 1.3%
4227 231
37
TABLE 5 Origin of Absbacts by Country in Chemical Abstracts during the Last 20 Years. Based o n Figures from Crane, E. J., Chemical a n d Engineering New=, 29,4250(1951),Plus e Spot Check for 1955
United States.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . British Commanweslth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Germanv . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Russia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . France . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Italy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Switzerland. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thc Netherlands.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . All others.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . .
abstracts several thousand periodicals. Fern indeed are the libraries which can supply all the demands of their readers from their own resources. The solution to the problem would appear to be a collection of the most used journals, as extensive as financial resources will permit, and dependence on an improved photoprint and microfilm service to complete the coverage.
There seems to be no particular reason why the college, university, and special libraries of the country should not organize a cooperative program to snpplement each other's holdings. This might take the form of a central depository of microfilm negatives of rare, little used, and foreign publications from which photoprints could be furnished upon request. If every technical library in the country contributed microfilm negatives from its holdings and assisted in the financing of the project, the cost to each would be moderate. I n the meantime, the present interlibrary photoprint service could be systematized and speeded up. I t should be possible to call the local library and get a photoprint order sent out by air mail the szme day. If orders were Wed the day received and returned air mail, it would be possible for the researcher in any part of the country to obtain any reference he needs in less than a week. A cooperative photoprint service could make any library anywhere as complete as all of them put together.
JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION
