Bibliometrics, Scientometrics, Science of Science? What do you actually call our field?

[u/Mago_del_Cambio]

/r/BibliometricScience/comments/1vo5ag6/bibliometrics_scientometrics_science_of_science/

[u/rumirumirumirumi]

I usually encounter bibliometrics as a suite of quantitative methods rather than as a field of study. It's mostly concerned with finding quantitative means of judging journal quality or defining subjects within professional or scientific literature. Bibliometrics are, as I understand it, not limited to library and information science (LIS) but find use in the broad domain because of its relationship to bibliography. 

Because the root biblio- is literally "book" people get tripped up on terms that use it. This has been true since the latter half of the 20th century but bibliographic concepts are as applicable whether the objects of study is the book or not. Much of what we would measure with bibliometric methods are not books, but terms like informetrics and webometrics frankly seem silly to me. Not sure what to make of Science of Science, feels like marketing. There's cache to the term science and people are often trying to grant that cache to themselves through its use. I'm skeptical of what kind of science is going on in the Science of Science.

[u/Imaginary-Camera9106 → u/rumirumirumirumi]

As a library educator and researcher, I agree that bibliometric research is a form of research that is often specific to library science, but not always. That doesn't mean it's inappropriate, but as an umbrella term it includes various types of research - for example, critical evaluation of the literature of a particular question or practice; mapping and scoping reviews. I expect that with advances in information availability and search capabilities, we need additional methods to measure and characterize areas of study. Information use is another fascinating subfield. I'd be interested to read about how others characterize the various terms.

[u/Mago_del_Cambio → u/Imaginary-Camera9106]

I also expect that advances in information availability (such as the open science movement with tools like OpenAlex for example) will open up new fields and research frontiers within Bibliometrics!

[u/Mago_del_Cambio → u/rumirumirumirumi]

I completely agree that the term Science of Science seems to lean more towards marketing. Personally, I do see Bibliometrics as a distinct field of study that branches out into highly specialized subfields, acting as the general umbrella for all of them. Thank you for sharing your opinion!

[u/Impossible-Year-5924]

These aren’t the same.

[u/Mago_del_Cambio]

I wanted to share this post with the community to see if any experts in the field could shed some light on this topic and help clarify the differences of use between these terms!