From: Gary Price <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, Nov 4, 2014 at 5:14 PM

via infoDOCKET.com

A new research paper published the other day by Google Scholar
co-founders Anurag Acharya, Alex Verstak, and five other Googlers.

Abstract

"In this paper, we examine the evolution of the impact of older
scholarly articles. We attempt to answer four questions. First, how
often are older articles cited and how has this changed over time.
Second, how does the impact of older articles vary across different
research fields. Third, is the change in the impact of older articles
accelerating or slowing down. Fourth, are these trends different for
much older articles.

To answer these questions, we studied citations from articles
published in 1990-2013. We computed the fraction of citations to older
articles from articles published each year as the measure of impact.
We considered articles that were published at least 10 years before
the citing article as older articles. We computed these numbers for
261 subject categories and 9 broad areas of research. Finally, we
repeated the computation for two other definitions of older articles,
15 years and older and 20 years and older.

There are three conclusions from our study.

First, the impact of older articles has grown substantially over
1990-2013. In 2013, 36% of citations were to articles that are at
least 10 years old; this fraction has grown 28% since 1990. The
fraction of older citations increased over 1990-2013 for 7 out of 9
broad areas and 231 out of 261 subject categories. Second, the
increase over the second half (2002-2013) was double the increase in
the first half (1990-2001).

Third, the trend of a growing impact of older articles also holds for
even older articles. In 2013, 21% of citations were to articles >= 15
years old with an increase of 30% since 1990 and 13% of citations were
to articles >= 20 years old with an increase of 36%.

Now that finding and reading relevant older articles is about as easy
as finding and reading recently published articles, significant
advances aren’t getting lost on the shelves and are influencing work
worldwide for years after."

Direct to Full Text Paper (11 pages):

http://arxiv-web3.library.cornell.edu/pdf/1411.0275v1.pdf

See Also: Posted online about a month ago by the same authors:

“Rise of the Rest: The Growing Impact of Non-Elite Journals”

http://www.infodocket.com/2014/11/04/more-research-from-google-scholar-team-on-the-shoulders-of-giants-the-growing-impact-of-older-articles/

See Also: Included in the Nature article last week is a list of the
most 100 cited papers back to 1900 in Google Scholar (in addition to
another list from Thomson Reuters):

http://www.infodocket.com/2014/10/30/nature-publishes-lists-of-top-100-cited-articles-of-all-time-in-cooperation-with-thomson-reuters-and-google/


__gary

Gary D. Price, MLIS
Co-Founder and Editor, Library Journal's INFOdocket.com
Co-Founder and Editor, FullTextReports.com
Information Industry Analyst
Librarian
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