Subject: Impact of Leading Journals
        
From: Subbiah Arunachalam, MSSRF, Madras                      
            
To:   Members of LIS-FORUM, NCSI, IISc, Bangalore   

Here is a table giving impact of leading LIS journals in three
different periods. These data were provided by the Research Group of ISI.
For more information, please visit the ISI website [www.isinet.com].

Arun     

            Journals Ranked by Impact: Information & Library Science
            
            
Rank     1997 Impact             Impact 1994-98          Impact 1981-98
           Factor 

1  J. Am. Med. Info. Assn.     J. Chem. Info. Comput.   ACM Tr. Office Sys.
       (2.16)                       (4.20)                   (16.45)

2  MIS Quarterly               MIS Quarterly            MIS Quarterly
       (1.62)                       (3.96)                   (14.35)

3  J. Am. Soc. Info. Sci.      Knowledge Acquisition    IEEE Tr. Info. Theory
       (1.26)                       (3.42)                   (9.13)

4  Int. J. Geogr. Inf. Sys.    Ann. Rev. Info. Sci.     Info. Tech. R&D Appl.
       (1.09)                       (3.00)                   (8.37)

5  Ann. Rev. Info. Sci.        IEEE Tr. Info. Theory    Ann. Rev. Info. Sci.
       (1.00)                       (2.77)                   (7.50)

6  Information Management      Int. J. Geogr. Inf. Sys. J. Chem. Info. Comput. 
       (0.70)                       (2.62)                   (7.28)

7  Scientometrics              J. Documentation          ACM Tr. Info. Systems
       (0.69)                       (2.47)                   (7.20)

8  Telecommun. Policy          J. Am. Med. Info. Assn.   J. Documentation
       (0.59)                       (2.45)                   (6.91)

9  Info. Process. Manage.      J. Am. Soc. Info. Sci.    J. Am. Soc. Info. Sci.
       (0.58)                       (2.41)                   (6.79)

10 J. Inform. Technol.         Info. Systems Research    Knowledge Acquisition
       (0.54)                       (2.30)                   (6.03)

The above table compares the citation impact of journals in a given             field as measured over three different time spans. The left-hand            column ranks journals based on their 1997 "impact factor," as             enumerated in the current edition of the ISI Journal Citation             Reports. The 1997 impact factor is calculated by taking the number             of all current citations to source items published in a journal over             the previous two years and dividing by the number of articles             published in the journal during the same period--in other words, a             ratio between citations and recent citable items published. The            rankings in the next two columns show impact over longer time spans,             based on figures from the ISI Journal Performance Indicators on            Diskette. In these columns, total citations to a journal's published            papers are divided by the total number of papers that the journ!
al             published, producing a citations-per-paper impact score over a
five-year period (middle column) and an 18-year period (right-hand             column).

SOURCE: Journal Citation Reports and Journal Performance Indicators 
            on Diskette