Geographic characteristics of the growth of informetrics literature 1987–2008

Recent studies have concluded that American contributions to science literature have been in relative decline, whereas contributions from other parts of the world such as the European Union and Asia have increased. Is the same true for the areas of bibliometrics, informetrics and scientometrics? This study investigates the growth and geographic distribution of metrics research for the period 1987–2008. Similar to studies of other disciplines or science in general, the findings reveal that the United States continues to dominate, but there has been a recent relative decline in North American contributions overall. European and Asian contributions have grown substantially. National and institutional collaborations that contribute to this growth do not necessarily follow close geographic proximity, although European nations have been more active with international collaborations overall, both within Europe and elsewhere.