Schwarz, Greg J.; Kennicutt Jr, Robert C. (2004) Demographic
and Citation Trends in Astrophysical Journal papers and
Preprints. Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=2004astro.ph.11275S
ABSTRACT: We have used data from ADS, AAS, and astro-ph, to study
the publishing, preprint posting, and citation patterns for papers
published in the ApJ in 1999 and 2002. This allowed us to track
statistical trends in author demographics, preprint posting habits,
and citation rates for ApJ papers as a whole and across various
subgroups and types of ApJ papers. The most interesting results
are the frequencies of use of the astro-ph server across various
subdisciplines of astronomy, and the impact that such posting has
on the citation history of the subsequent ApJ papers. By 2002 72%
of ApJ papers were posted as astro-ph preprints, but this fraction
varies from 22-95% among the subfields studied. A majority of these
preprints (61%) were posted after the papers were accepted at ApJ,
and 88% were posted or updated after acceptance. On average, ApJ
papers posted on astro-ph are cited more than twice as often as
those that are not posted on astro-ph. This difference can account
for a number of other, secondary citation trends, including some of
the differences in citation rates between journals and different
subdisciplines. Preprints clearly have supplanted the journals as
the primary means for initially becoming aware of papers, at least
for a large fraction of the ApJ author community. Publication
in a widely-recognized peer-reviewed journal remains as the
primary determinant of the impact of a paper, however. For example,
conference proceedings papers posted on astro-ph are also cited twice
as frequently as those that are not posted, but overall such papers
are still cited 20 times less often than the average ApJ paper. These
results provide insights into how astronomical research is currently
disseminated by authors and ingested by readers.
Received on Thu Feb 17 2005 - 15:54:41 GMT