All Along the h-Index-related Literature: A Guided Tour

In this chapter, a survey of the literature related to the \(h\)-index (referred to as \(h\)-related literature) between 2005 and 2016 is presented. In the first section, the basic definitions and a brief historical account are given. After providing an overview of the typology of the \(h\)-related publications and some earlier reviews, the more than 3000 \(h\)-related publications collected from four databases (Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic) are analyzed by bibliometric methods. Document types, publication sources, subject categories, geographical distributions, authors and institutions, citations and references are listed and mapped. Several examples of applications of the \(h\)-index, within and outside the area of scientometrics, are presented, with particular attention to the possibilities for using the \(h\)-related indices as a network measure. Among the mathematical models used to explain and interpret the index and its relatives, Hirsch's model, the Lotkaian framework, models based on extreme value theory and on fuzzy integrals, and axiomatic approaches are demonstrated.

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