International publication patterns in social sciences: A quantitative analysis of the IBSS file

A scientometric analysis of social science literature is tried by using the machine-readable files of the IBSS 1981-1985. This is a comprehensive international bibliography in social sciences including cultural anthropology, economics, political science and sociology. Data used were 40,313 monograph records in the IBSS files. First, the number of scholarly monographs was examined by country. As a result, it is shown that a large number of monographs was published by only a very small number of countries. Second, the number of monographs was examined by language. A similar pattern as that of countries was observed. Third, the relationship between the publishing country and the language used is discussed. It is clarified that some languages, such as English, French and Spanish, are used in many countries because of their historical background such as colonization. Finally, we examined the correlation among the number of published monographs, GDP, population and the number of people attaining a university education. A regression model that incorporates GDP as explanatory variables explains well the variation of the number of monographs by countries (R²=0.77).