THE BRADFORD DISTRIBUTION
- 1 March 1967
- journal article
- Published by Emerald Publishing in Journal of Documentation
- Vol. 23 (3), 197-207
- https://doi.org/10.1108/eb026430
Abstract
The distribution of references in a collection of pertinent source documents can be described and predicted by the relation where the parameter ß is related to the subject field and the completeness of the collection. The model is used to predict the reference yield of abstracting journals in a search for thermophysical property data. It is used also to explain differences among various literature studies of the past in terms of differences in subject and comprehensiveness of search. The model is derived from S. C. Bradford's ‘law of scattering’ and is called the Bradford Distribution.Keywords
This publication has 3 references indexed in Scilit:
- A New Method for the Search of Scientific Literature through Abstracting Journals.Journal of Chemical Documentation, 1962
- A NEW LOOK AT REFERENCE SCATTERINGJournal of Documentation, 1962
- BRADFORD'S LAW OF SCATTERINGJournal of Documentation, 1948