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Increasing life expectancy of water resources literature
Author(s) -
Heistermann M.,
Francke T.,
Georgi C.,
Bronstert A.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
water resources research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.863
H-Index - 217
eISSN - 1944-7973
pISSN - 0043-1397
DOI - 10.1002/2014wr015674
Subject(s) - readability , counterintuitive , citation , life expectancy , dominance (genetics) , sign (mathematics) , computer science , data science , psychology , library science , demography , sociology , mathematics , epistemology , mathematical analysis , population , philosophy , biochemistry , chemistry , gene , programming language
In a study from 2008, Larivière and colleagues showed, for the field of natural sciences and engineering, that the median age of cited references is increasing over time. This result was considered counterintuitive: with the advent of electronic search engines, online journal issues and open access publications, one could have expected that cited literature is becoming younger. That study has motivated us to take a closer look at the changes in the age distribution of references that have been cited in water resources journals since 1965. Not only could we confirm the findings of Larivière and colleagues. We were also able to show that the aging is mainly happening in the oldest 10–25% of an average reference list. This is consistent with our analysis of top‐cited papers in the field of water resources. Rankings based on total citations since 1965 consistently show the dominance of old literature, including text books and research papers in equal shares. For most top‐cited old‐timers, citations are still growing exponentially. There is strong evidence that most citations are attracted by publications that introduced methods which meanwhile belong to the standard toolset of researchers and practitioners in the field of water resources. Although we think that this trend should not be overinterpreted as a sign of stagnancy, there might be cause for concern regarding how authors select their references. We question the increasing citation of textbook knowledge as it holds the risk that reference lists become overcrowded, and that the readability of papers deteriorates.