Altmetrics: A Practical Guide for Librarians, Researchers and Academics

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/EL-04-2017-0092
Pages840-841
Published date07 August 2017
Date07 August 2017
AuthorPhilip Calvert
Subject MatterInformation & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet
in new digital settings and nding new research objects, whereas the fourth part
“Digital Research: Challenges and Contentions” makes the reader cautious about
ethical issues of data condentiality, the nature of digital data, the inequalities and
power relations they reect, the limitations of digital methods for studying social
phenomena and so on. To summarise: the book encourages a more mature and
thoughtful approach to digital methods, but it is not a step-by-step guide for the
application of methods; those wishing to nd advice on particular techniques will
need to turn to other sources.
Zinaida Manžuch
Faculty of Communication, Institute of Library and Information Science,
Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania
Altmetrics: A Practical Guide for Librarians, Researchers and
Academics
Edited by Andy Tattersall
Facet
London
2016
214 pp.
££49.95 soft cover
ISBN 978-1-78330-010-5
Keywords Librarians
Review DOI 10.1108/EL-04-2017-0092
Altmetrics is a relatively new method of assessing scholarly impact. It has generally been
used for impact made through publication, hence the term, which comes from “article level
metrics”. Recently, methods have been added to include impact through people, journals,
books, data sets, presentations, videos, source code repositories and web pages. Originally, it
did not include citation counts because it was, to some extent, a reaction against traditional
metrics, but it can now do that as well as engage with other aspects of a work’s impact, such
as how many data and knowledge bases refer to it, and the number of article views,
downloads or mentions in social media and news media it receives. This extension of the
method is explained well by Gunn in Chapter 6. This is an edited work and there are
contributions from key gures in the eld: Euan Adie, William Gunn and Ben Showers.
Seven chapters were written by Tattersall and two by his colleagues Booth and Beecroft.
The book’s opening chapters include a general introduction and a history of traditional
metrics and a description of the development of Web 2.0 technologies that are generally used
to measure altmetrics. Chapters 4, 5 and 6 are written by Showers, Adie and Gunn,
respectively, and provide some interesting insights into the evolution of the methods now
used and how altmetric data are collected and used. Chapter 7 considers the use of new
technologies. Chapter 8, “Resources and Tools,” by Tattersall, lists 41 resources: the major
altmetrics tools and many social media platforms, some of which have an academic focus,
while others tend towards the mainstream. This gives some concrete examples of techniques
EL
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