Interest in bibliometrics - the quantitative analysis of publications, authors, bibliographic references, and related concepts - has never been greater, as universities, research councils, national governments, and corporations seek to identify robust indicators of research effectiveness. In Scholarly Metrics Under the Microscope, editors Blaise Cronin and Cassidy R. Sugimoto bring together and expertly annotate a wealth of previously published papers, harvested from a wide range of journals and disciplines, that provide critical commentary on the use of metrics, both established and emerging, to assess the quality of scholarship and the impact of research. The expansive overview and analysis presented in this remarkable volume will be welcomed by any scholar or researcher who seeks a deeper understanding of the role and significance of performance metrics in higher education, research evaluation, and science policy.

Introduction: the drunk, the keys, and the streetlamp / Blaise Cronin and Cassidy R. Sugimoto -- Citation indexes for science: a new dimension in documentation through association of ideas (1955) / Eugene Garfield -- Fascination or fetishism? / Blaise Cronin and Cassidy R. Sugimoto -- The need for a theory of citing (1981) / Blaise Cronin -- Referencing as persuasion (1977) / G. Nigel Gilbert -- Beyond the holy grail: from citation theory to indicator theories (1999) / Paul Wouters -- Informetric analyses on the world wide web: methodological approaches to "webometrics" (1997) / Tomas C. Almind and Peter Ingwersen -- The new metrics of scholarly authority (2007) / Michael Jensen -- Toward a rhopography of scholarly communication (2008) / Blaise Cronin -- Scientometrics 2.0: toward new metrics of scholarly impact on the social web (2010) / Jason Priem and Bradley M. Hemminger -- Messy matters of meaning and motivation / Blaise Cronin and Cassidy R. Sugimoto -- Abuses of citation indexing (1967) / Kenneth O. May -- The footnote fetish (1977) / Jon Wiener -- Citation analysis: queries and caveats (1977) / Alan L. Porter -- Do you sincerely want to be cited? or: read before you cite (2006) / Mikhail Simkin and Vwany Roychowdhury -- Problems of citation analysis: a critical review (1989) / Michael H. MacRoberts and Barbara R. MacRoberts -- No citation analyses please, we're British (1991) / Alun Anderson -- Scientific communication -- a vanity fair? (1999) / Georg Franck -- Coercive citation in academic publishing (2012) / Allen W. Wilhite and Eric A. Fong -- Show me data (2007) / Mike Rossner, Heather Van Epps and Emma Hill -- The uses and abuses of bibliometrics (2012) / Martin H. Johnson, Jacques Cohen, and Gedis Grudzinskas -- Sick of impact factors (2012) / Stephen Curry -- The devil is in the details / Cassidy R. Sugimoto and Blaise Cronin -- Journal selection for current contents: editorial merit vs. political pressure (1985) / Eugene Garfield -- Lost science in the third world (1995) / W. Wayt Gibbs -- Opportunities for and limitations of the book citation index (2013) / Juan Gorraiz, Philip J. Purnell and Wolfgang Glänzel --Google's book search: a disaster for scholars (2009) / Geoffrey Nunberg -- Using Google Scholar for journal impact factors and the h-index in Nationwide Publishing Assessments in Academia-siren songs and air-raid sirens (2012) / Péter Jacsó -- Manipulating Google Scholar citations and Google Scholar metrics: simple, easy and tempting (2012) / Emilio Delgado López-Cózar, Nicolás Robinson-Garcia, and Daniel Torres-Salinas -- Novel forms of impact measurement -- an empirical assessment (2012) / Paul Wouters and Rodrigo Costas -- Critical questions for big data: provocations for a cultural, technological, and scholarly phenomenon (2012) / Danah Boyd and Kate Crawford -- Issues of time, credit and peer review (2012) / Diane Harley -- Angels on a pinhead / Cassidy R. Sugimoto and Blaise Cronin -- An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output (2005) / J.E. Hirsch -- Do we need the h index and its variants in addition to standard bibliometric measures (2009) / Lutz Bornmann, Rüdiger Mutz and Hans-Dieter Daniel -- A quantitative analysis of indicators of scientific performance (2008) / Sune Lehmann, Andrew D. Jackson and Benny E. Lautrup -- The inconsistency of the h-index (2012) / Ludo Waltman and Nees Jan van Eck -- How can impact factors be improved? (1996) / Eugene Garfield -- The number that's devouring science (2005) / Richard Monastersky -- "3 ... 2 ... 1 ... impact [factor]: target [academic career]!": just another statistical casualty (2012) / Roger A. Brumback -- Towards a new crown indicator: an empirical analysis (2011) / Ludo Waltman, Nees Jan van Eck, Thed N. van Leeuwen, Martijn S. Visser and Anthony F.J. van Raan -- Remembering problems with the "new crown indicator" (MNCS) of the CWTS (2011) / Loet Leydesdorff and Tobias Opthof -- There are [sic] neither "King" or "Crown" in scientometrics: comments on a supposed "alternative" method of normalization (2011) / Yves Gingras and Vincent Lariviére -- Accounting for science / Cassidy R. Sugimoto and Blaise Cronin -- A review of bibliometric and other science indicators and their role in research evaluation (1987) / Jean King -- Measuring science: irresistible temptations, easy shortcuts, and dangerous consequences (2007) / Giovanni Abramo and Ciriaco Andrea D'Angelo -- One size doesn't fill all: on the co-evolution of national evaluation systems and social science publishing (2013) / Diana Hicks -- Fatal attraction: conceptual and methodological problems in the ranking of universities by bibliometric methods (2005) / Anthony F.J. van Raan -- The future of research evaluation rests with an intelligent combination of advanced metrics and transparent peer review (2007) / Henk F. Moed -- Explaining Australia's increased share of ISI publications: the effects of a funding formula based on publication counts (2003) / Linda Butler -- Changing incentives to publish (2011) / Chiara Franzoni, Giuseppe Scellato and Paula Stephan -- Looks good on paper: a flawed system for judging research is leading to academic fraud (2013) / The Economist -- A call for action / Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik -- Mirror, mirror on the wall / Blaise Cronin and Cassidy R. Sugimoto -- Science against science (1998) / Marian Apostol -- New age numerology: a gloss on Apostol (1998) / Blaise Cronin -- Endowing mediocrity: neoliberalism, information technology and the decline of radical pedagogy (1999) / Mike Sosteric -- Bibliometrics as weapons of mass citation (2010) / Antoinette Molinié and Geoffrey Bodenhausen -- The follies of citation indices and academic ranking lists: a brief commentary to "bibliometrics as weapons of mass citation" (2010) / Richard R. Ernst -- Living with the h-index? metric assemblages in the contemporary academy (2012) / Roger Burrows -- Impact of bibliometrics upon the science system: Inadvertent consequences? (2005) / Peter Weingart -- Research governance in academia: are there alternatives to academic rankings? (2009) / Margit Osterloh and Bruno S. Frey -- Epilogue: the bibliometrics baby and the bathwater / Blaise Cronin and Cassidy R. Sugimoto.