Christopher D. Forney is Reference Librarian in the Fairfax County Library System’s Special Services Department, 6209 Rose Hill Drive, Alexandria, VA 22310. He received the BS degree from Stephen F. Austin State University and the MLS degree from North Carolina Central University.
This paper was originally submitted to the faculty of the School of Library and Information Science, North Carolina Central University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Library Science.
CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM AND ITS SETTING
Statement of the Problem
Librarians may utilize several types of studies designed to assist them in determining the needs of their users: library surveys, user surveys, and bibliometric studies. The latter is a means of studying the various characteristics of a subject literature in a scientific manner in order to determine use patterns. These studies are unobtrusive and the measure of use may influence thinking on the structure of information and knowledge in that discipline, in addition to the formulation of collection development policies and practices.
To date, there has not been a bibliometric study of the acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Therefore, this study proposes to analyze the literature of the acquired immune deficiency syndrome in the journal literature. The study will determine the titles most frequently cited, the language in which papers are most frequently written, and the analysis of journals by country of publication.
The Hypotheses
The first hypothesis is that the majority of references will be written in English as opposed to a foreign language.
The second hypothesis is that the majority of journals will be published in the United States.
The third hypothesis is that there will be a core list of most frequently cited journals with information on AIDS.
The fourth hypothesis is that there will be no journals devoted solely to the acquired immune deficiency syndrome during the time period studied.
The Subproblems
The first subproblem is to determine in what languages the references were written. What is the percentage of references written in English compared to other languages?
The second subproblem is to determine the distribution of journals by country of publication. Will the majority of the journals be published in the United States?
The third subproblem is to rank the cited journal titles according to the frequency with which they are cited. Which titles constitute the core of most frequently cited periodicals?
The fourth subproblem is to determine if any journals devoted solely to AIDS exist. How many references were cited?
Delimitations
This investigation will be confined to references to articles on the acquired immune deficiency syndrome over the five-year period from 1980–1984. All references appeared in six National Library of Medicine bibliographies on AIDS. Analytical entries for annual reports, abstracts, bibliographies, conference and symposium proceedings, non-print materials such as video-recordings and cassettes, monographs, and other miscellaneous notes were excluded.
Definition of Terms
Citation. A citation is a bibliographic reference which is used to cite the authority for statements in the text. Citations may take the form of a footnote or a collection of references at the end of the paper.
Cited reference. The cited reference is the document to which the source article refers. In this study, the distribution of cited references by title and language serve as the basis for this investigation.
Citing reference. The citing reference is the source document of the citation. In this study, the database of citing references shall be composed of all source articles in the sample of bibliographies.
Core title. The core titles are the documents which receive the highest citation rate and, thus are the most important for that discipline.
Citation Rate. The citation rate is the number of times a publication has been cited. Citation rate in this investigation is calculated as the number of references to the acquired immune deficiency syndrome, discounting duplicate references to the same document.
Research Assumptions
The first assumption is that the selection of a paper for publication in a given journal indicates relevance of that material to the primary intended audience as judged by the editors. Relevance of the paper to readers outside of the intended discipline may be inferred from citation rate.
The second assumption is that there is a correlation between the citation rate and the importance of the journal, or group of journals.
Importance of the Study
The purpose of this bibliometric study is to give the working physician, researcher, and librarian an idea of where the literature on the acquired immune deficiency syndrome is located during the period from 1980–1984. The results of the study may be used as an acquisition tool for developing a journal collection on AIDS.
CHAPTER II
THE ACQUIRED IMMUNE DEFICIENCY SYNDROME
Background
Few diseases in modern times have raised such fears and uncertainties as the acquired immune deficiency syndrome, better known as AIDS, and the malignancies, infections, and brain damage that can accompany it. In a little more than eight years, AIDS has become a medical dilemma, literally wreaking a “viral war” upon a nation caught by surprise.1 AIDS has grown from a clinical oddity to a virtual epidemic, half of whose victims have already expired and the vast majority of whom will be dead within three years of their seeking medical attention.
As of yet, there is no cure for AIDS, and both the layman and health professional face a medical challenge with uncertainty. The emergence of the acquired immune deficiency syndrome as a new and deadly catastrophe has been a grim reminder of the limitations of even the most advanced technology to respond to the onset of a medical crisis.2
Before it is over, countless individuals will be pushed to the limit in their quest for a solution to the AIDS epidemic. Physicians will become exasperated, while researchers remain perplexed by the plethora of clues. AIDS is burdening both the health care delivery system and society, and compounding everything is the revelation of certain segments of the population as the initial and principal victims of this medical phenomenon.3
At the same time, stunning successes in the sciences of epidemiology, virology, immunology, molecular biology, oncology, pharmacology, and pathology have led to discovery and description in intricate detail of the virus responsible for...
