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Article
Measures of greatness: A Lotkaian approach to literary authors using OCLC WorldCat Article reference:
Library & Information Science Research (2017)
  • Alon Friedman, University of South Florida
  • Jay H. Bernstein
Abstract
This study examines the productivity, eminence, and impact of literary authors using Lotka's law, a bibliometric approach developed for studying the published output of scientists. Data on literary authors were drawn from two recent surveys that identified and ranked authors who had made the greatest contributions to world literature. Data on the number of records of works by and about selected authors were drawn from OCLC WorldCat in 2007 and 2014. Findings show that the distribution of literary authors followed a pattern consistent with Lotka's law and show that these studies enable one to empirically test subjective rankings of eminent authors. Future examination of distribution of author productivity might include studies based on language, location, and culture.
Keywords
  • OCLC WorldCat,
  • literary authors,
  • Lotka's law
Publication Date
Summer July 3, 2017
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2017.07.001
Citation Information
Alon Friedman and Jay H. Bernstein. "Measures of greatness: A Lotkaian approach to literary authors using OCLC WorldCat Article reference:" Library & Information Science Research Vol. 39 Iss. 3 (2017) p. 180 - 188 ISSN: 0740-8188
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/alon-friedman/42/