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The aims of this paper are to: investigate the citation‐patterns of monograph books in taxonomic botany (looking mainly at publications and publishers, and the age of current literature); and make recommendations for collections management and reference services in libraries that hold botany materials.

In total, 454 citations were collected at random from 47 botanical monographs published in 2009; a Bradford distribution of cited journals was produced; age‐distributions of citations were devised; and other bibliographical characteristics were tabulated.

A small Bradfordian core of highly‐cited journals and important publishers of monograph books were identified; monographs are cited more often than journal articles; older materials are more important than in other sciences; monographs are used by botanists for current awareness purposes; coverage of botanical journals by citation indexes is poor.

The small size of the sample means that results were indicative. Further studies could: take larger samples; look at citations in journal articles, theses, conference proceeding; look at citations made over several years.

Librarians should: note the core botanical journals identified here; continue to acquire botanical monographs and to retain older materials; display new botanical monographs prominently and include them in current awareness services.

The bibliometrics of taxonomic botany have previously been little studied; likewise citations from monographs. This paper fills some of the gaps. Some of the bibliometric methods of J. M. Cullars were applied to botanical literature.

Most citation analyses are based on references taken from two or three source journals. There are good theoretical reasons for believing that these may not be representative of all references. In the social science citation analyses carried out as part of the DISISS programme, references were collected from 140 journals, including forty‐seven drawn at random from a comprehensive list, and also from 148 monographs. Analyses of references drawn from high ranking and randomly selected journals showed differences in date distribution, forms of material cited and rank order of journals cited. Analyses of references drawn from journals and monographs showed differences, some of them large, in date distributions, forms of material cited, subject self‐citation and citations beyond the social sciences, and countries of publication cited. These differences may be peculiar to the social sciences, but any citation analyses that are based on only a limited number and type of sources without specific justification must be regarded with suspicion.

The purpose of this paper is to present the results from a quantitative analysis comparing usage levels between an e-monograph collection that has experienced continual growth and an e-monograph collection that has not experienced any recent growth whatsoever. The aim of the study was to determine quantitatively if e-monograph collections with dynamic content experience greater levels of usage compared to e-monograph collections that are static in both size and content.

E-monograph data were separated into a Dynamic and a Static Collection. Usage for e-monographs belonging to the Dynamic Collection was compared to usage of e-monographs belonging to the Static Collection. The number of e-monographs was obtained by simple count. Additional statistics tracked include the number of viewings. A linear regression analysis was used to determine the strength of the linear relationship between collection size and usage.

Results indicate that e-monograph collections that continue to grow in both size and content also continue to experience year-to-year increases in usage, whereas e-monograph collections that remain static in size and content experience a decline in usage. A linear regression analysis indicates the existence of a very strong linear relationship that exists between Dynamic Collection size and usage. A weaker linear relationship was calculated for Static Collection size and usage.

This research is one of very few studies systematically and quantitatively comparing usage levels between e-monographs from growing collections to collections that have not had any new titles added recently.

The literature on electronic publishing reveals that scant attention has been paid to the area of scholarly monographs. This paper reports on a study into the nature and provision of electronic scholarly monographs and textbooks in the UK. Following a brief description of the methodology, publishing structures are reviewed; the physical characteristics of electronic scholarly monographs are analysed, and issues associated with access are discussed. The final section sets out areas for future work. The study reported on here was a supporting study for the UK Electronic Libraries (eLib) Programme.

This study investigates an approach to book metrics for research evaluation that takes into account the complexity of scholarly monographs. This approach is based on work sets – unique scholarly works and their within-work related bibliographic entities – for scholarly monographs in national databases for research output.

This study examines bibliographic records on scholarly monographs acquired from four European databases (VABB in Flanders, Belgium; CROSBI in Croatia; CRISTIN in Norway; COBISS in Slovenia). Following a data enrichment process using metadata from OCLC WorldCat and Amazon Goodreads, the authors identify work sets and the corresponding ISBNs. Next, on the basis of the number of ISBNs per work set and the presence in WorldCat, they design a typology of scholarly monographs: Globally visible single-expression works, Globally visible multi-expression works, Miscellaneous and Globally invisible works.

The findings show that the concept “work set” and the proposed typology can aid the identification of influential scholarly monographs in the social sciences and humanities (i.e. the Globally visible multi-expression works).

In light of the findings, the authors outline requirements for the bibliographic control of scholarly monographs in national databases for research output that facilitate the use of the approach proposed here.

The authors use insights from library and information science (LIS) to construct complexity-sensitive book metrics. In doing so, the authors, on the one hand, propose a solution to a problem in research evaluation and, on the other hand, bring to attention the need for a dialogue between LIS and neighbouring communities that work with bibliographic data.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the evolution in terms of shares of scholarly book publications in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) in five European countries, i.e. Flanders (Belgium), Finland, Norway, Poland and Slovenia. In addition to aggregate results for the whole of the social sciences and the humanities, the authors focus on two well-established fields, namely, economics & business and history.

Comprehensive coverage databases of SSH scholarly output have been set up in Flanders (VABB-SHW), Finland (VIRTA), Norway (NSI), Poland (PBN) and Slovenia (COBISS). These systems allow to trace the shares of monographs and book chapters among the total volume of scholarly publications in each of these countries.

As expected, the shares of scholarly monographs and book chapters in the humanities and in the social sciences differ considerably between fields of science and between the five countries studied. In economics & business and in history, the results show similar field-based variations as well as country variations. Most year-to-year and overall variation is rather limited. The data presented illustrate that book publishing is not disappearing from an SSH.

The results presented in this paper illustrate that the polish scholarly evaluation system has influenced scholarly publication patterns considerably, while in the other countries the variations are manifested only slightly. The authors conclude that generalizations like “performance-based research funding systems (PRFS) are bad for book publishing” are flawed. Research evaluation systems need to take book publishing fully into account because of the crucial epistemic and social roles it serves in an SSH.

The authors present data on monographs and book chapters from five comprehensive coverage databases in Europe and analyze the data in view of the debates regarding the perceived detrimental effects of research evaluation systems on scholarly book publishing. The authors show that there is little reason to suspect a dramatic decline of scholarly book publishing in an SSH.

The purpose of this paper is to report on a project undertaken at University College London (UCL) examining the role and value of the academic monograph – considering continuing decline in sales and usage – and its possible survival in the digital age.

A qualitative approach was adopted, in which 17 arts and humanities academics were interviewed in‐depth on their experiences and views.

The monograph continues to be of great value in the arts and humanities field, and is seen as essential for career progression. Much concern was expressed about the decline in quality of this and other forms of writing, with pressures of the university Research Assessment Exercise foremost in contributing to this decline. Reservations were expressed about moving towards digital versions of the monograph, although print‐on‐demand was considered to be a viable option to enable the continuing publication of specialist works.

This is the first in‐depth study of the role, value and future of the monograph from the viewpoint of the scholar, and so gives a unique insight into the scholarly communication behaviour of arts and humanities researchers.

The purpose of this paper is to present an empirical assessment of the weight assigned to monographs in the publication indicator of the performance-based research funding system (PRFS) in Flanders, Belgium. By relating publication weight to publication size the authors offer an alternative perspective on the production of scholars who publish monographs. This perspective on weights is linked to the aggregation level at which PRFS indicators are used: the national/regional one as opposed to the local one. In Flanders as elsewhere the publication indicator designed for funding distribution between universities has sometimes trickled down to institutions, their faculties and departments.

As an alternative indicator of scholarly production the authors propose the median number of pages of a publication type. Measuring the size of publications allows to compare the weight ratio between monographs and journal articles in the publication indicator to their size ratio in the VABB-SHW database. The authors compare two levels, one of four universities and one of 16 disciplines.

Median publication size differences between disciplines are much larger than those between universities. This indicates that an increase of monographs’ weight in the publication indicator would hardly affect funding distribution at the regional level. Disciplines with a relatively large share of monographs, however, would contribute more to the publication indicator. Hence an increase of monographs’ weight might provide a better balance between fields and between publication types.

This paper presents a thought experiment regarding the weight assigned to different publication types in the publication indicator of the Flemish PRFS: what would happen if this weight were replaced by the median number of pages of a publication type? In doing so, we highlight that such weighting schemes play an important role in finding a balance between fields of research. The sizeable differences between weight and size ratios offer a new and critical perspective on the weighting schemes currently used in PRFS, also in other countries.

The principal aim of this study is to examine the transmission of ideas across time in disciplines selected from the humanities and social sciences. Citation analysis is used to trace the diffusion of ideas as they are embodied in monographic publications. The study is part of a developing research programme and is intended to establish a framework to inform future developments. Four specific hypotheses are developed and tested. They are concerned with: the relative impact of monographs and journal articles produced within a discipline; the distinction between core and non‐core group monographs; the correlation between the reception and intellectual survival of a monograph; and the comparative level of impact of monographic and journal article publication by a single author. It is concluded that the presence of core or elite groups can be perceived in all aspects of the study. The validity of the methodologies employed is strengthened by the sharp distinctions between groups of monographs and of authors revealed by the analysis of data. Further analysis is needed to explore intra‐ and inter‐disciplinary diffusion of ideas over time in greater depth.

Looks at the implications of electronic scholarly monograph publishing for authors, publishers and readers. It stems from original research undertaken by the authors in 1998 as part of the JISC Electronic Libraries Programme (eLib). Since the formal completion of the work both authors have remained active in the area and have monitored new developments. The project included a comprehensive literature search and review; a survey of UK and international publishers of electronic monographs by means of an interrogation of their Web sites, and case studies conducted with selected UK publishers. A separate investigation of the publishers of national bibliographical sources and services was also undertaken, and UK university libraries were surveyed by means of an e‐mail questionnaire. Offers a description of the structure of electronic monograph publishing, including the roles of the various parties involved in the publishing process, and addresses such issues as provision, costing, authoring and editorial responsibilities and challenges. An analysis of the issues associated with the characteristics of Web monographs is provided, together with a delineation of the nature of narrative content, added value components, subject orientations and quality control. Concludes with a brief consideration of some of the challenges that confront the user of electronic scholarly monographs, including issues of access.