Using the h‐index to rank influential British researchers in information science and librarianship

Abstract The recently developed h ‐index has been applied to the literature produced by senior British‐based academics in librarianship and information science. The majority of those evaluated currently hold senior positions in UK information science and librarianship departments; however, a small number of staff in other departments and retired “founding fathers” were analyzed as well. The analysis was carried out using the Web of Science (Thomson Scientific, Philadelphia, PA) for the years from 1992 to October 2005, and included both second‐authored papers and self‐citations. The top‐ranking British information scientist, Peter Willett, has an h ‐index of 31. However, it was found that Eugene Garfield, the founder of modern citation studies, has an even higher h ‐index of 36. These results support other studies suggesting that the h ‐index is a useful tool in the armory of bibliometrics.