| Abstract: | The impact of monographs in a vertebrate zoology collection on the scientific literature was assessed using a randomly selected sample (52 monographs), Science Citation Index and a statistical package. Characterstics of the monographs considered were: copyright date, circulation, citation frequency and subdiscipline (ichthyology, herpetology, ornithology, mammalogy). Citing references were dispersed among journals in a wide array of disciplines. A few monographs proved to be very highly cited (one being cited nearly 600 times), and so generated the majority of the database of 2,971 citations. The ichthyology monographs generated the broadest subject dispersion among citing references. The herpetology collection is less active than are the others in terms of circulation and current citation frequency. The sample has been generating an ever increasing share of the citations in the Science Citation Index. A method that applies citation analysis to the evaluation of monograph collections is outlined. |
