Trend evaluation and comparison of the use and value of GL in core demography and computer science journals

Co-authored together with Roberta Ruggieri, Silvia Giannini, and Stefania Biagioni. Over the last ten years the impact of grey literature on conventional literature has frequently been studied. Studies have made use of bibliometric instruments used for citation analysis. Recently, this research has magnified attention on the impact of new forms of GL that have emerged along with the spread of Internet. This work aims to a) measure the impact of GL on two different scientific fields; b) describe the characteristics of GL documents cited; c) ascertain any changes in LG impact due to use of the www. Two years (1995 and 2003) were chosen as illustrative of the situation before and after the growth in the use of the www. With these aims, bibliographic references have been analysed in publications in two scientific fields for which it is logical to hypothesize a different impact. The publications are three journals of computer sciences included in the Journal Citation Report (JCR) Science Ed., and three journals of demography included in Journal Citation Report (JCR) – Social Science Ed.. The three journals in each of the two categories were chosen on the basis of their stability during the observation period (1995 and 2003) in terms both of their Impact Factor (IF) - high, medium and low - and of their ranks.