Crystallographic literature: a bibliometric and citation analysis

The literature of crystallography was studied by bibliometric analysis using the Lockheed DIALOG on-line information retrieval system and the Chemical Abstracts database. In the period 1972 to 1976, the publication of journal articles on crystallography remained approximately constant at 9550 papers per year. Major journals publishing articles on crystallography were identified and ranked; ten journals devote more than half their contents to the subject. Twenty journals account for half the papers on crystallography. Use of Bradford's Law along with ranking by percentage of crystallographic papers showed that there are 22 core journals. The 18 that had citation data available were ranked on an 'influence' basis. The most influential journals, as identified by citation data, are large well known chemistry and physics journals. The citation linkages between the field of crystallography and other closely related fields of science show that links to chemistry and physics are about an order of magnitude stronger than those to metallurgy, materials science, mineralogy and biology.