Use of Bibliometrics-Related Terms, their Evolution, and the Growth of Metrics in Science

This article analyses the evolution of the most-used terms referring to the (broad) field of bibliometrics. It compares the number of publications on bibliometrics, scientometrics, informetrics, web(o)metrics, altmetrics, and the science of science, in three international databases, the Web of Science, Scopus, and Dimensions. We found that the relative number of documents using one of the metrics-related terms is showing a more than exponential increase. This illustrates the increasing importance of metrics in the world of science. While most terms separately show a clear increase in use, web(o)metrics and perhaps, informetrics, seem to have reached their top. Bibliometrics and scientometrics are the most-used terms, with, nowadays, the term bibliometrics being used about five times more than the term scientometrics. Any comprehensive bibliometric study should make use of a combination of related keywords to cover the whole field of study.