In a fit of genius, J. Britt Holbrook and colleagues from the Center for the Study of Interdisciplinarity at the University of North Texas proposed a list of 56 Indicators of Impact, ranging from “# of citations” to “meetings with important ppl.”[1] Subsequently published in the hallowed pages of Nature under the heading “Research impact: We need negative metrics too,” Holbrook’s index represents a fitting case study from which the theme of Blaise Cronin and Cassidy Sugimoto’s book emerges; the depth of what we know or can know about measuring the impact of a scholarly object is no longer contained in the h-index alone. Situating itself in the midst of a complicated time for academic publishing, Beyond Bibliometrics offers a collection of essays from an international group of academics, information scientists, publishers and alt/bibliometricians, all these providing clarity, context and challenges to our current moment of measurement.
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