One way to understand formal appraisal information flows is to examine the bibliometric patterns of appraisal literature. Citations and acknowledgements have the effect of being a social gesture –from them we can determine that the citing author wishes to connect publicly to the cited author or acknowledged person regardless of the intent of the connection (negative or positive citation). By tracking the number of times a particular author is cited (or gestured towards) it is possible to determine social presence within a limited domain. This poster reports the results and method of a bibliometric analysis of appraisal literature published in American Archivist and Archivaria from 1994 –2009. It draws on the methodology of a prior study from 1977 –1994,ii thus enabling longitudinal comparison. The study is novel in its expansion of citation analysis to include social gestures that are not citations.