Abstract

With the launch of the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), Thomson Reuters has created a set of expectations. The Web of Science has become the most comprehensive research platform of journal evaluation. ESCI acts as the waiting room before Thomson technicians check whether journals meet the quality requirements to be indexed in the Science Citation Index (SCI), Social SCI, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index databases. ESCI is characterized by its multidisciplinary coverage and its increase in geographic coverage, now reaching non Anglo-Saxon countries. ESCI increases Thomas Reuters range without sacrificing the quality of its reference products. In addition, it contributes to the transparency of the evaluation and selection process.

Abstract

In 2010 Thomson launched a new citation index devoted to books: the Book citation index. This new database has opened new possibilities for analyzing fields such as the Humanities and Social Sciences from a bibliometric point of view. However we still know little about their coverage and especially about the scientific publishers that have been taken into account in the construction of this citation database. In this paper we analyze the BKCI coverage: countries, languages, concentration of publishers and finally we compare the database with Scholarly publishers indicators (SPI), produced in Spain by CCHS/CSIC. The conclusion is that Thomson is making the same mistakes as before: a clear Anglo-Saxon bias, a large concentration of publishers and an absence of a number of reputable publishers.

Abstract

The new bibliometric product announced by Thomson Reuters, Book citation index, is described. The authors discuss how this powerful company can carry out this big project (big science) and also improve its other products, taking advantage of the many studies undertaken by small bibliometric research teams (little science) in previous years. The new index promises to be successful because books are the main communication vehicle in the humanities.