A biliometric study of medical genetic engineering literature

本研究旨在應用書目計量學方法分析近廿年（1982-2001年10月）來醫學基因工程文之特性，藉以探討醫學基因工程之發展情形。研究樣本取自Medline線上資料庫，計101,888篇相關參考書目。研究問題包括文獻成長情形、出版國別、語文、資料類型、作者生產力與服務機構分佈等，並應用布萊德福定律與洛特卡定律分別計算與驗證期刊文獻與作者生產力分佈。資料分析係採用Access及Excel電子試算表軟體。期望此一研究結果能提供醫學基因工程界暨相關醫學圖書館或資料單位參考，協助其做有效之館藏規劃及期刊資訊服務。研究結果歸納如下：1.自1984年至1996年，醫學基因工程文獻平均每年較前一年增加639篇，並於1996達到最高逢。研究與文獻出版數量的成長，顯示醫學基因工程漸受重視，並使其研究性增加。2.醫學基因工程文獻之主要出版國為美國、英國、荷蘭、德國、日本、瑞士、丹麥、俄國、法國、愛爾蘭等國。台灣文獻出版量之排名則為第31名。3.英文為醫學基因工程文獻最重要之寫作語文，俄文、日文依序於後。4.醫學基因工程文獻之出版類型以期刊文章為主，佔總文獻之81.4%。5.以布萊德福定律之分區分及圖解方式分別驗證醫學基因工程期刊文獻，結果部份符合該定律，求得之核心期刊分別為美國、英國及荷蘭所出版。6.以洛特卡定律最小平方法求得n值為-2.6075，C值為74.6428；並利用科斯檢驗法加以檢定，證明洛特卡定律並不適用於本研究。7.加州大學為醫學基因工程文獻重要的生產機構；就台灣而言，以台灣大學生產量最多，全球排名第196名。8.美國、日本、英國、德國、法國為最具醫學基因工程學術研究實力之國。Applying bibliometric techniques this study investigated the characteristic of medical genetic engineering literature during 1982-2002 October such as, the growth of literature, publication country, language, publication types, authors' productivity and their affiliations. The distribution of journal articles and author productivity were examined by Bradford's and Lotka's Laws, respectively. A total of 101,888 bibliographic data were retrieved from the Medline online database of Ovid system. Access and Excel analyzed these data. The results attempt to contribute to the better understanding of the status and trends of development in the advanced study of medical genetic engineering.The results of the study reveal that:1.Medical genetic engineering literature increased steadily by about 639articles every year from 1984-1996. 1996 was the most active year of medical genetic engineering study.2.USA, UK, Netherlands, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Denmark, Russia, France, and Ireland were the major countries of medical genetic engineering publications. Taiwan ranked 31.3.English was the most often used language; Russian ranked number two and the third most often used language was Japanese.4.Journal article was the major type of publication and accounted for 81.4% of total publication.5.The Bradford-Zipf's plot of journal literature fits the typical Bradford-Zipf's S-shaped curve. Zone analysis and graphical formulation from Bradford's law of scattering was reexamined, and it was found to be applicable to journal productivity distribution. Eight core journals were identified by the Bradford's law analysis. They were Journal of Biological Chemistry, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Biochemistry, Biochemical & Biophysical Research Communications, FEBS Letters, Blood, European Journal of Biochemistry and Journal of Immunology.6.Lotka's law was found to be inapplicable to author productivity distribution with n=-2.6075 and C=74.6428. The K-S test also explored the invalidity of observed distributions at 0.01 level of significance.7.University of California was the most important institute of medical genetic engineering publications. In Taiwan, National Taiwan University published the most medical genetic engineering literature and it ranked 196.8.The most important countries of medical genetic engineering study were USA, Japan, UK, Germany and France