Tracing thought through time and space: a selective review of bibliometrics in social work.

Bibliometrics is a field of research that examines bodies of knowledge within and across disciplines. Citation analysis, a component of bibliometrics, focuses on the quantitative assessment of citation patterns within a body of literature. Citation analysis has been used in social work to examine the quantity and the impact of the work of individuals and academic institutions. This paper presents a selective review of these uses of bibliometrics within social work.