Informetrics at the beginning of the 21st century - A review

This paper reviews developments in informetrics between 2000 and 2006. At the beginning of the 21st century we witness considerable growth in webometrics, mapping and visualization and open access. A new topic is comparison between citation databases, as a result of the introduction of two new citation databases Scopus and Google Scholar. There is renewed interest in indicators as a result of the introduction of the h-index. Traditional topics like citation analysis and informetric theory also continue to develop. The impact factor debate, especially outside the informetric literature continues to thrive. Ranked lists (of journal, highly cited papers or of educational institutions) are of great public interest. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.