F. W. Lancaster: A Bibliometric Analysis

F. W. Lancaster, as the most cited author during the 1970s to early 1990s, has broad intellectual influence in many fields of research in library and information science. This bibliometric study collected citation data for Lancaster’s publications from 1972 to 2006 and analyzed the data in terms of the time and space and disciplinary breadth of his intellectual influence. The result shows that Lancaster has established an extraordinary record of both productivity and citedness. Six of his works, according to the criteria for citation classic, have been cited so extensively over a longtime span that they qualify as citation classics in library and information science. Although much of the citation data, especially those in non-English publications, are not covered in citation databases, the bibliometric depiction nonetheless provides a good picture of Lancaster’s contribution to and influence in library and information science. Evaluating scholarly communication by bibliometric analysis is one area in which F. W. Lancaster has made significant contribution. Many of his articles in bibliometric research have been cited extensively. I first read Lancaster’s bibliometric articles at the beginning of my doctoral study at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Wrestling with a wide range of topics and readings for the famous four seminars1 in the first two years of my doctoral study, my interest was drawn to bibliometric research due to my participation in the citation analysis project for the Transactions of the Royal Society of London, in which Bryce Allen was the principle investigator and Lancaster the advisor. Later in Lancaster’s seminar on information retrieval and evaluation, I had numerous discussions with him about the short paLIBRARY TRENDS, Vol. 56, No. 4, Spring 2008 (“The Evaluation and Transformation of Information Systems: Essays Honoring the Legacy of F. W. Lancaster,” edited by Lorraine J. Haricombe and Keith Russell), pp. 954–967 (c) 2008 The Board of Trustees, University of Illinois F. W. Lancaster: A Bibliometric Analysis