The Law of Exponential Growth: Evidence, Implications and Forecasts.

s, International Political Science Abstracts, Historical Abstracts, and Sociological Abstracts. Figure 2 shows cumulated number of abstracts in Chemical Abstracts, Science Abstracts and Biological Abstracts, 1960-79;figure 3 showns the same data for Sociological Abstracts, International Political Science Abstracts and Historical Abstracts;figure 4,the samedata forPsychological Abstracts;and figure 5 , the same data for Librai,yand Znformation Science Abstracts.Groupings were determined, in part, by the scaleof the vertical axis,and in part by similarities in subject matter. In these cases,nocorrection was made for pre-1960 literature, so that the data points shown in figures 2, 3, 4, and 5 show cumulations relative to 1960 only. By fitting exponential functions to both the noncumulated and cumulated values, using May's method described earlier, i t was possible to obtain growth rates either incorporating or ignoring the pre-1960 literature. Fits were also made just to the 1970-79 figure to determine if growth was changing in the seventies. SCIENCE ABSTRACTS 5) BIOLOGICAL ABSTRACTS In Ln CHEMICAL ABSTRACTS

[1]  Bruce C. Bennion,et al.  The Epidemiology of Research on "Anomalous Water" , 1976, J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci..

[2]  Warren Ks,et al.  Th ecology of the medical literatures. , 1972 .

[3]  J. Davidson Frame,et al.  An information approach to examining developments in an energy technology: Coal gasification , 1979, J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci..

[4]  Kenneth O. May,et al.  Growth and Quality of the Mathematical Literature , 1968, Isis.

[5]  H. Small.  A Co-Citation Model of a Scientific Specialty: A Longitudinal Study of Collagen Research , 1977 .

[6]  Kenneth O. May.  Quantitative Growth of the Mathematical Literature , 1966, Science.

[7]  Tibor Braun,et al.  An analytical look at chemical publications , 1980 .

[8]  F. Oliver.  Methods of Estimating the Logistic Growth Function , 1964 .

[9]  R. T. Bottle,et al.  Liquid crystal literature: A novel growth pattern , 1979 .

[10]  C. F. Gosnell.  Obsolescence of Books in College Libraries , 1944 .

[11]  Charles P. Bourne.  The world's technical journal literature: An estimate of volume, origin, language, field, indexing, and abstracting , 1962 .

[12]  KENNETH S. WARREN,et al.  The ecology of the medical literatures , 1972, The American journal of the medical sciences.

[13]  G. Nigel Gilbert.  Measuring the growth of science - A review of indicators of scientific growth , 1978, Scientometrics.

[14]  E. W. Hulme.  Statistical bibliography in relation to the growth of modern civilization , 1923 .

[15]  D. Price.  Little Science, Big Science , 1965 .

[16]  Michael J. Moravcsik,et al.  Science: Growth and Change , 1972 .

[17]  Michael J. Moravcsik.  Measures of scientific growth , 1973 .

[18]  WILLIAM GOFFMAN,et al.  Mathematical Approach to the Spread of Scientific Ideas—the History of Mast Cell Research , 1966, Nature.

[19]  Charles M. Gottschalk,et al.  Worldwide census of scientific and technical serials , 1963 .

[20]  K. Popper.  Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach , 1972 .

[21]  Daryl E. Chubin,et al.  Content Analysis of References: Adjunct or Alternative to Citation Counting? , 1975 .

[22]  Dale B. Baker.  Recent Trends in Growth of Chemical Literature. , 1976 .