New factors in the evaluation of scientific literature through citation indexing

Abstract More than one million citations from the scientific literature have been processed by the Citation Index Project at the Institute for Scientific Information. The Project, sponsored by NSF and NIH, will be described briefly, and new methods of using citation data for evaluation of publications will be discussed. Summaries of statistical data, compiled by computer methods such as the following, will be given. Frequency of citation of one journal by another. Frequency of current citations to the past literature. Frequency of self‐citation by journals and authors. Number of source citations per cited paper. Number of references per source paper. Number of papers published per journal. Information scientists and research workers are encouraged to use this unique reservoir of information for additional statistics applicable to their fields of work as a basis for comparative studies on the efficacy of various indexing techniques.