Impact and relevance of LIS journals: A scientometric analysis of international and German-language LIS journals - Citation analysis versus reader survey

The first of these directs readers to the source of knowledge that have been variously drawn upon in the particular work or are held to be otherwise relevant. . . . However . . . citations are not only essential bibliographic aids for scientists and scholars concerned to assess data and knowledge claims in the citing text or to retrieve further apt information. Along with providing a historically evolving social mechanism for the transmission and advancement of knowledge, citations routinely provide a mechanism for maintaining the distinctive character of scientific property. This derives from the composite of values, norms, and modes of social control that have evolved in the social institutions of science. (Merton, 2000, p. 438)