Science dynamics: from production to evaluation—two recent books

Nikolay K. Vitanov: Science Dynamics and Research Production: Indicators, Indexes, Statistical Laws and Mathematical Models. Springer International Publishing, Switzerland 2016. Hardcover: 285 pages, ISBN: 978-3-319-41629-8; eBook: ISBN: 978-3-31941631-1, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-41631-1. The book is the first volume of a promising new Springer series: Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of Scientific and Scholarly Communication (ISSN: 2365-8371). The author of the book was almost unknown in scientometrics apart from a book chapter written in 2012 (Vitanov and Ausloos 2012). All the more was he well known in the field of nonlinear differential equation theory and also in its application in physics and, more recently, in social sciences. His more than 100 publications, more than 1000 citations and an h-index above 20 are a good testimonial to expect an adept contribution even on an area apparently untrodden by him. What might have caused some ‘‘advanced distrust’’ was the recent trend by physicists to tackle social science topics with their own toolkit completely neglecting the existing literature (or a substantial part of it), probably considering it too soft to their standards. The results are usually spectacularly exact and often highly appreciated by other physicists, but because the lack of embedding into the body of existing experience and knowledge, they cannot have real impact on the development of the field. Fortunately enough, the book completely belied the misgivings. It relies upon the full width and depth of the relevant literature. This fact cannot be characterized any better than by the 1240 references collected at the end of the six chapters. The book is divided into three parts. Part I: Science and Society. Research Organizations and Assessment of Research contains one single chapter: Chapter 1: ‘‘Science and Society. Assessment of Research’’. Actually, as this example suggests, the division into parts seems a bit superfluous, of course, it does not diminish at all the value of the book.