TY - JOUR AB - The distribution of references in a collection of pertinent source documents can be described and predicted by the relation where the parameter ß is related to the subject field and the completeness of the collection. The model is used to predict the reference yield of abstracting journals in a search for thermophysical property data. It is used also to explain differences among various literature studies of the past in terms of differences in subject and comprehensiveness of search. The model is derived from S. C. Bradford's ‘law of scattering’ and is called the Bradford Distribution. VL - 23 IS - 3 SN - 0022-0418 DO - 10.1108/eb026430 UR - https://doi.org/10.1108/eb026430 AU - LEIMKUHLER FERDINAND F. PY - 1967 Y1 - 1967/01/01 TI - THE BRADFORD DISTRIBUTION T2 - Journal of Documentation PB - MCB UP Ltd SP - 197 EP - 207 Y2 - 2024/09/18 ER -