Special features of historical papers from the viewpoint of bibliometrics

This paper deals with the specific features of historical papers relevant for information retrieval and bibliometrics. The analysis is based mainly on the citation indexes accessible under the Web of Science (WoS) but also on field-specific databases: the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) literature database and the INSPEC database. First, the journal coverage of the WoS (in particular of the WoS Century of Science archive), the limitations of specific search fields as well as several database errors are discussed. Then, the problem of misspelled citations and their “mutations” is demonstrated by a few typical examples. Complex author names, complicated journal names, and other sources of errors that result from prior citation practice are further issues. Finally, some basic phenomena limiting the meaning of citation counts of historical papers are presented and explained.