Evaluation

From CARLI

Impact Factors

A couple of times a semester a faculty member--or fellow librarian--will get exercised about the significance of the Journal Citation Reports, and especially as they relate to impact factors. Generally, arts and humanities faculty will react in a visceral negative way when they learn that their journals are excluded from the JCR. By the same token science and social science scholars are frequently confused by the many variables involved in the interpretation of impact factors as they apply to individual disciplines and subfields. By chance I recently came across Jo Cross' open access article--"Impact factors - the basics"--which sheds a good deal of light on what to make of impact factors. The open URL is located at:

http://uksg.metapress.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&id=doi:10.1629/9552448-0-3.17.1

The article is relatively short, but makes clear the complexities embodied in impact factors and the auxiliary data associated with the JCR. I heartily recommend Cross' piece to anyone who has reservations or questions about the meaning and significance of impact factors.

Jim Millhorn, Head of Acquisitions, Northern Illinois University