In this study, we present an objective, replicable methodology to identify trendy journals in any consolidated discipline. Trendy journals are those most read by authors who are currently publishing within the scope of the discipline. Trendy journal lists differ from consolidated lists of top core journals; the latter are very stable over time, mainly reflecting reputational factors, whereas the former reveal current influences not yet captured by studies based on bibliometric indicators or expert surveys. We apply our methodology to identify trendy journals among 167 titles indexed in the Web of Science category of the Information Science & Library Science (LIS) research area. Our list of trendy journals represents the most influential journals nowadays in the LIS discipline, challenging to some extent the core LIS journal list and journal category lists ordered by citations (e.g., by the Journal Impact Factor). Our results show that https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11192-023-04673-x/figures/6Scientometrics is the journal that bears the most influence on current production when not corrected for journal size and that Quantitative Science Studies—a small, relatively new journal not yet assigned a Journal Impact Factor nor present on any list of core LIS journals—is the journal that has shown the most significant recent influence when controlling for size.
Influence of the top 10 trendy journals over time. Note: solid lines represent the non-normalized scores (NNS), and dashed lines represent the normalized scores (NS). Source: 10.1007/s11192-023-04673-x
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
