Bibliometrics and libraries

Abstract

"That complex and controversial issue". The expression, as it is, is used by Eugen Garfield himself -father, back in 1955, of the much questioned and discussed as, by now, widespread and essential idea, known generically, in one of its various meanings, as Impact Factor-, and he does so in an article (http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/papers/jifchicago2005. pdf) in which, in 2005, he takes a retrospective, evaluative and even somewhat astonished look at the importance acquired, mainly in the world of scientific research, by the so-called citation indexes and by the elaborations subsequent to their analysis, the so-called bibliometric indicators.