Definition and identification of journals as bibliographic and subject entities: Librarianship versus ISIJournal Citation Reportsmethods and their effect on citation measures

Abstract This paper explores the ISIJournal Citation Reports(JCR) bibliographic and subject structures through Library of Congress (LC) and American research libraries cataloging and classification methodology. The 2006Science Citation Index JCRBehavioral Sciences subject category journals are used as an example. From the library perspective, the main fault of theJCRbibliographic structure is that theJCRmistakenly identifies journal title segments as journal bibliographic entities, seriously affecting journal rankings by total cites and the impact factor. In respect toJCRsubject structure, the title segment, which constitutes theJCRbibliographic basis, is posited as the best bibliographic entity for the citation measurement of journal subject relationships. Through factor analysis and other methods, theJCRsubject categorization of journals is tested against their LC subject headings and classification. The finding is thatJCRand library journal subject analyses corroborate, clarify, and correct each other.