Document (#30223)

Author

Szava-Kovats, E.

Title

Unfounded attribution of the "half-life'' index-number of literature obsolescence to Burton and Kebler : a literature science study

Source

Journal of the American Society for Information Science and technology. 53(2002) no.13, S.1098-1105

Year

2002

Abstract

Szava-Kovats demonstrates that the common attribution of the origin of the concept of half-life in subject-oriented journal literatures to the 1960 Burton and Kebler article in American Documentation is not correct. The first use appears to be in C. R. Gosnell's 1944 paper in College and Research Libraries. It was later discussed by J. D. Bernal at the 1958 International Conference on Scientific Information in Washington, DC. While Burton and Kebler do solve some of the theoretical problems by redefining half-life, they do not express confidence in the use of half-life in this milieu, and Burton later advocates in 1961 the term ``median age'' which was introduced by Broadus in this context in 1953.

Theme

Informetrie

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