ABSTRACT
Academic faculties are becoming increasingly aware of the many capabilities of Science Citation Index, 1 Social Sciences Citation Index, 2 and Arts & Humanities Citation Index. 3 These indexes are used for subject searching, for obtaining lists of publications by a given author, for determining centers of certain types of research, for comparative evaluations of academic departments, and for evaluation of peers in tenure and promotion considerations. Although considerable controversy surrounds the use of citation counts for the latter practice, they are being used in such evaluations. It is not the purpose of this paper to reexamine or enter into the controversy surrounding the use of citation data in promotion or tenure considerations. The literature on this subject is voluminous. We wish to discuss the impact of online availability of citation data and provide information relating to provision and interpretation of search results by librarians. In addition, we recommend other types of information which the librarian should suggest to patrons in order to supplement citation data, or to be used when citation data is nonexistent or appears incomplete.
