Relationships between Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Statistics and Bibliometric Indicators: A Principal Components Analysis

Dean Hendrix is Coordinator of Education Services in the Health Sciences Library at The State University of New York at Buffalo. ©Dean Hendrix This study analyzed 2005–2006 Web of Science bibliometric data from institutions belonging to the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and corresponding ARL statistics to find any associations between indicators from the two data sets. Principal components analysis on 36 variables from 103 universities revealed obvious associations between size-dependent variables, such as institution size, gross totals of library measures, and gross totals of articles and citations. However, size-independent library measures did not associate positively or negatively with any bibliometric indicator. More quantitative research must be done to authentically assess academic libraries’ influence on research outcomes.