“Books” and “Book Chapters” in the Book Citation Index (BKCI) and Science Citation Index (SCI, SoSCI, AHCI)

摘要

In 2011, Thomson-Reuters introduced the Book CitationIndex (BKCI) as part of the Science Citation Index (SCI).The interface of the Web of Science version 5 enables usersto search for both “Books” and “Book Chapters” as newcategories. Books and book chapters, however, were alwaysamong the cited references, and book chapters have beenincluded in the database since 2005. We explore the twocategories with both BKCI and SCI, and in the sisterdatabases for the social sciences (SoSCI) and the arts &humanities (A&HCI). Book chapters in edited volumes canbe highly cited. Books contain many citing references, butare relatively less cited. We suggest that this may find itsorigin in the slower circulation of books then of journalarticles. It is possible to distinguish bibliometricallybetween monographs and edited volumes among the“Books”. Monographs may be underrated in terms ofcitation impact or overrated using publication performanceindicators because individual chapters are countedseparately as contributions in terms of articles, reviews,and/or book chapters.