Bibliometrics

Bibliometrics is the science that addresses the forms of production, contents, dissemination and effects (mainly in terms of impact) of publications via statistical tools. The greatest interest of bibliometrics (or scientometrics, when restricted to academic publications) lies in allowing the study of large bibliographic productions with empirical tools, thus achieving systematic portraits of the evolution and state of the art of scientific disciplines in a way that individual researchers could not achieve based solely on their own readings. The main objects of study of bibliometrics are the diachronic evolution of a field of study, its current trends, thematic and methodological axes, productivity, authorship patterns—whether individual, institutional or national—and impact in terms of citations and visibility on the Internet. This entry briefly presents bibliometrics as a whole. It dwells in particular on its main objects of study, as well as on its potentialities and limitations, then focuses on its methodological tools—mainly quantitative and statistical—and concludes with a portrait of its application to translation studies until 2019