Research Impact for the Faculties of Arts & ABP - a self-help guide

Metrics for books and chapters

Books and book chapter metrics can assist in measuring the reach and impact of your scholarly publishing. They can be more difficult to find than article and journal metrics, since Scopus and Web of Science are not comprehensive in their coverage and don't consistently index book chapters.

Book reviews can provide evidence of the esteem in which your publication is held by others in your discipline.

These metrics may be useful for promotion, employment and grant applications.

 Want some help or advice? Make an appointment with a librarian to discuss your needs.

Book Citation Index (Web of Science)

1. Go to Web of Science.
2. Search for the book's or chapter's title, and view its citations.

To search for book reviews:

1. Use the categories menu on the left-hand side of the screen to limit your results to book reviews.
2. Note the number of reviews, and the journals in which the reviews were published.

Google Scholar

1. Go to Google Scholar.
2. Search for the book or chapter title, and view its citations.

To search for book reviews:

Include the phrase "book review" in your search.

Library holdings

Library holdings can give an indication of the reach of your publication, and demonstrate that it is considered useful for teaching and research purposes.​

The University of Melbourne

Trove

• Covers the holdings of Australian libraries and archives.

WorldCat

• Holdings in libraries worldwide.
• Type 'all' in the 'Enter your location' box to see worldwide holdings of the book

Jisc Library Hub Discover (Copac)

• Holdings in libraries in the UK and Ireland.

The European Library

• Catalogues the collections of the 48 European national libraries.

Other measures of esteem

Other measures of impact may be useful:

• Listing on university or school reading lists
• "Best seller" lists
• Awards received
• Prestige of the publisher
• Editions
• Translations
• Publisher - supplied information (eg sales statistics, number of downloads from publisher's website)