Do Authors with Stronger Bibliographic Coupling Ties Cite Each Other More Often?

Author bibliographic coupling is extended from bibliographic coupling concept and holds the view that two authors with more common references are more related and have more similar research interests. This study aims to examine the association between author bibliographic coupling strength and citation exchange in Information Science & Library Science and more specifically, in imetrics. The results show that there is a positive and significant association between these two factors in Information Science & Library Science and also in imetrics; however, the correlation is more significant among imetricians. This confirms the Merton's norm of universalism versus constructivists' particularism. A closer investigation of bibliographic coupling and citation networks among thirty highly cited imetricians shows that Thelwall, M. is in strong bibliographic coupling and citation relationships with the majority of authors in the network. He and BarIlan have the strongest ABC and citation relationships in the network. Rousseau, R., Glänzel, W., Bornmann, L., Bar-Ilan, J., and Leydesdorff, L. are also in strong ABC relations with each other as well as other authors in the network. Conference Topic Citation and co-citation analysis