Saturday, January 29, 2011

Book Citation Index


Thomson Reuters is adding a "Book Citation Index" to the Web of Science. With the exception of some book series, up till now if your book publication was cited in a journal covered by the Web of Science that citation to your work was included in the Citation Index. But citations to your work in books, even from prestigious presses such as Cambridge were not included. The main source I currently use for these is Google Scholar and Google Books. At launch 25,000 books will be indexed including Edward Elgar books from 2007 onwards.

Books are much more important in the humanities and some social sciences than in most natural sciences. In economics books are important in economic history in particular as well as I think in ecological economics to some degree. This expanded coverage is good news for researchers in these areas.

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