Annals of Library Science and Documentation 1986, 33(1-2),27-30

AGE OF LITERATURE STUDIES IN

AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS

S.K. MUSIB
Department of Botany
Burduum University
Burdwan 713104

6869 citations received by the American journal
of Agricultural Economics and Indian journal of
Agricultural Economics during 1970 to 1980
have been analysed and half life of the litera-
ture determined from American and Indian
point of view, through citation analysis. Results
show that book literature decays faster than
journal literature.
INTRODUCfION
The use .of literature of a particular discipline
reaches a maximum after a certain period of
time from their date of publication and there
its use gradually decreases. Many scientists have
tried to measure the relationship between the
time (age of the literature) and the amount of
literature that cease to be used. This type of
relationship is usually expressed by the term
'obsolescence'. Enormous literature have been
published on obsolescence, but there is no
clear cut definition of it. However Line and
Sandison [3] said that if something is less and
less used it is said to 'obsolesce' and when its
use ceases it is 'obsolete'. So obsolescence of
literature implies two things: the amount of
documents used and the time that has passed,
calculating from the moment a document is
published and used - the use of information
it only predicts that certain portion of the
literature becomes obsolete as time passed. It
should be borne in mind that obsolescence is
characterised as a reduction in the citing of a
written knowledge with time. A decrease in the
citing of a document does not imply a decrease
in the value of the information that it contains,
only it is not cited.
There are a good number of cases where
citation analysis has been applied to indicate
the age of literature of a particular discipline.
Some of the important ones are Earle and
Vickery in social sciences [1], Line in anthro-
pology, criminology, environmental planning
and political science [2], Xhinesse and Osgood
in psychology [5]. The scope of the present
paper lies in analysing the citations appended
to the research papers in agricultural economics
contributed by American and Indian authors,
with a view to finding out the distribution of
citations in different age groups.
METHODOLOGY
Citations that appeared in the form of reference
and footnotes have been collected from the arti-
cles published in the American journal of Agri-
cultural Economics( AjAE) and Indian journal
of Agricultural Economics (!JAE) between I

in past. Also some scientists have used the con-
cept 'half life' of the literature [4]. It is the
period of time during which half of currently
cited literature is published.
Keeping this in mind a measure of obsoles-
cence of literature in agricultural economics
has been attempted through citation analysis.
This method gives no idea about the identifica-
tion of the document which becomes obsolete,
* Related article by the author appeared in
Annals Sep-Dec 1985, Vol. 32 (3-4), p.93-98
1970 and 1980 (both years inclusive). The
differences in the years of publications of the
citing and the cited documents have been taken
as the relevant age of the particular citation. If
both the citing and the cited documents happen-
ed to fall in the same year, the difference was
noted as zero. After recording the relevant ages
of all the citations in slips, they were then
tabulated for observations.

Vol 33 Nos 1-2 March-June 1986 27

 MUSIB
OBSERVATION AND DISCUSSIONS
The total number of citations recorded were
6869 out of which 3793 (i.e. 55.21%) belonged
to journal citations and 3076 (i.e. 44.78%)
belonged to book citations. If should be empha-
sized at this stage that the major portions of the
contributions in both the journals were by the
authors belonging to their own nationality, i.e.
American in AJAE and Indian in fJAE. Only 32
contributions out of 296 (i.e. 10.8%) in AJAE
and 30 contributions out of 192 (l.e. 15.6%)
in If AE were by authors of foreign origin. This
clarifies that the age of citations appended to
the contributions of AJAE would reflect the
mind of American authors whereas that (,f
fJAE would reflect the mind of Indian authors.
While calculating the years of difference to all
the citations, it was found that, journal cita-
tions in AJAE ranged from '0' (zero) year
to 63 years whereas those in IjAE ranged from
o (zero) year to 56 years and book citations
in AJAE ranged from 0 (zero) year to 156
years whereas those in IfAE ranged from 0
(zero) year to 51 years. However. it was found
that very few citations in both the journals
exceed 30 years of difference. Taking this as an
advantage, the whole range of years have been
divided into groups such as 0,1,2,3,4, ...,19,20,
21-25, 26-30, 31 and above.
Distribution oj citations in different age groups.
Analysis of the number, percentage and cumu-
lative percentage of journal and book citations
in each year interval shows that (Table 1) the
maximum percentage of journal citations used
by agricultural economists are of 2 years of age,
and those of book citations are of one year of
age. 50% of journal citations used by agricultural
economists were within 0-5 years and that of
book citations were slightly over 0-4 years. To
cover 75% journal citations it required 0-10
years and that of book citations required 0-9
years.
It can also be noticed from the Table that
as the year difference increased, the percentages
of the total number of journal citations increas-
ed reaching a maximum at year difference 2 and
then its use gradually decreased suggesting that
information published in journals was heavily
used after two years from its date of publica-
28
tion, and as the age of the information increases
its relative use gradually decreases. On the other
hand, information published in books was
heavily used after one year of its publication
and then as the age of information increases
its use also decreases. In this case the half-
life for journal literature is five years and that of
for book literature is slightly over four years
but less than five years.
[ournalurise distribution of citations in dif-
ferent age groups
Analysis of the journalwise distribution of the
percentage of citations in different age groups
shows (Table 2) that the maximum number
of journal citations belonged to the age group
0-2 years and that of book citations 0-1 years,
when considered from American point of view.
This remains the same when considered from
Indian point of view. 50% of journal citations
used by American and Indian authors were 0-5
years of age, that of book citations were 0-4
years of age. 75% of journal and book citations
used by American authors belonged to age
groups respectively of 0-10 years and 0-9 years,
and that of by Indian authors belonged to the
age groups respectively of 0-9 years and 0-8
years. On the other hand, 90% of journal and
book citations used by American authors
belonged to the age groups respectively of
0-17 years and 0-16 years and that of by 'Indian
authors belonged to the age groups respectively
of 0-15 years and 0-14 years. A close look into
the Table 2 shows that book literature decays
faster than journal literature. It can also be
noticed that upto the level of 50% of journal
and book citations, both American and Indian
authors show same tendency, but at the level of
75% and 90% of journal and book citations,
Indian authors used more current literature
than their American counterparts.
Periodwise distribution of citations in different
age groups
Period wise distribution of citations against
different age groups shows (Table 3) that maxi-
mum percentage of citations belonged to the age
group of 0-2 years for both the years 1970
Ann Lib Sci Doc
 AGE OF LITERATURE
Table 1: Distribution of citations in different age groups
----------------------------------------------------------
Age Journal citations Book citations
groups ------------------- -------------------------
No. % cumula- No % cumula-
tive% tive%
0 173 4.56 164 5.33
1 339 8.93 13.49 360 11.70 17.03
2 491 12.94 26.43 354 11.50 28.53
3 370 9.75 36.18 331 10.76 39.29
4 297 7.33 44.01 285 9.26 48.55
5 264 6.96 50.97, 219 7.11 55.66
6 239 6.30 57.27 180 5.85 61.51
7 224 5.90 63.17 158 5.13 66.64
8 210 5.53 68.70 158 5.13 71.77
9 182 4.79 73.49 150 4.87 76.64
10 130 3.42 76.91 104 3.38 80.02
11 133 3.50 80.41 78 2.53 82.55
12 99 2.61 83.02 60 1.95 84.50
13 70 1.84 84.86 63 2.04 86.54
14 77 2.03 86.89 46 1.49 88.03
15 63 1.66 88.55 42 1.36 89.39
16 49 1.29 89.84 39 1.26 90.65
17 46 1.21 91.05 37 1.20 91.85
18 43 1.13 92.18 30 0.97 92.82
19 45 1.18 93.36 31 1.00 93.82
20 41 1.08 94.44 23 0.74 94.56
21-25 110 2.90 97.34 72 2.34 96.90
26-30 49 1.29 98.63 31 1.00 97.90
31 and above 49 1.29 99.92 51 1.65 99.55

Table 2: Coverage in years of maximum percentage, 50%,75% and 90% of citations in AJAE and
IjAE
------ ----------------- --------- ------------------------
Form Maximum 50% 75% 90%
%
-------------------- ------------------------------------
AJAE Journals 0-2 0-5 0-10 0-17
IJAE Journals 0-2 0-5 0-9 0-15
AJAE Books 0-1 0-4 0-9 0-16
IJAE Books 0-1 0-4 0-8 0-14
---------------------- ----------------------------------
Vol 33 Nos 1-2 March-June 1986 29
 MUSIB

Table 3: Coverage in years of maximum percentage, 50%, 75% and 90% of citations in 1970 and
1980.

Form Year Maximum 50% 75% 90%

Journals 1970 0-"2 0-4 <.0-8 0-11

Journals 1980 0-2 0-5 0-10 0-18

Books 1970 0-1 4..0-4 0-7 0-12

Books 1980 0-2 0-4 0-9 0-16

and 1980, and that of book citations belonged
to the age group of 0-1 years for the period
1970 and 0-2 years for the period 1980. 50%
of the cited journal literature for the period
1970 and 1980 belonged respectively to the age
groups of 0-4 years and 0-5 years and that of
cited book literature belonged respectively to
the age groups of slightly over 0-3 years and
0-4 years. 75% of the cited journal literature
for the period of 1970 and 1980 belonged res-
pectively to the age groups of slightly over 0-7
years and 0-10 years, and that of cited book
literature belonged respectively to the age
groups of 0-7 years and 0-9 years. And lastly
90% of the cited journal literature for the period
1970 and 1980 belonged respectively to the age
groups of 0-11 years and 0-18 years and that of
for book literature belonged to the age groups
of 0-12 years and 0-16 years. The above analy-
sis clearly indicates that there is a tendency to
use older literature for the period 1980 than
that of 1970. It also shows that book literature
decays faster than journal literature.
CONCLUSIONS
As seen from the above analysis, book literature
decays faster than journal literature in the
field of agricultural economics. Line [2] has
reported that in anthropology, criminology,
environmental planning and political science
journal references decay much faster than book
references. Periodwise age distribution shows
the tendency of using older literature for the
period 1980 compared to 1970. Periodwise
age distribution has also been reported in
other disciplines by different workers. Xhignese
and Osgood [5] showed that only 35% of the
citations in 21 psychological journals published
in 1960 were to materials more than 10 years
old. The 1901 to 1940 period accounted for
38% of citations in 1950 and this figure fall
to 12% in 1960.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The author is grateful to Dr. M. Mahapatra,
Reader, P.G. Dept. of Library and Information
science, Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, for
his encouragement and valuable help.
REFERENCES
Earle P, Vickery B C: Social Science literature use
1.
in U.K. as indicated by citations. Journal of Docu-
mentation 1969, 25, 123-141.
2. Line, M B: The influence of the type of sources
used on the results of citation analysis. Journal
of Documentation 1979,35,265-284.
3. Line, M B, Sandison, A: 'Obsolescence' and changes
in the use of literature with time. Journal of Docu-
mentation 1974,30,283-350.
4. Meadows, A J: Communication in Science, London.
Butterworths, 1974.
5. Xhignesse, Louise V and Osgood, Charles E: Biblio-
graphical citation characteristics of the psychologi-
cal journal network in 1950 and 1960. American
Psychologist 1967, 22, 778-791.

30 Ann Lib Sci Dnc