The Role of the Literature in Mathematics

Publisher Summary This chapter describes how the publication of Science Citation Index has facilitated the identification of who is working on particular problems, by identifying those authors whose bibliographies include a known relevant paper. By carrying out a snowballing search and finding which authors have cited these authors, a picture of the work being done can be built up. The possibility of closure of the set of authors is of theoretical rather than practical interest. The Science Gtation Index approach is an interesting one, but it can be tedious and it does require a starting point. Bibliographies covering limited subject areas are presented in the chapter, and the volumes of collections of reviews from Mathematical Reviews in particular subject areas are valuable examples. However, unless a bibliography has a very restricted time span, it is not the most useful source for identifying people currently working in the field.