Bibliometric analysis of the automatic indexing literature: 1956-2000

We present a bibliometric study of a corpus of 839 bibliographic references about automatic indexing, covering the period 1956-2000. We analyse the distribution of authors and works, the obsolescence and its dispersion, and the distribution of the literature by topic, year, and source type. We conclude that: (i) there has been a constant interest on the part of researchers; (ii) the most studied topics were the techniques and methods employed and the general aspects of automatic indexing; (iii) the productivity of the authors does fit a Lotka distribution (Dmax = 0.02 and critical value = 0.054); (iv) the annual aging factor is 95%; and (v) the dispersion of the literature is low.