Among the many statistics on science, called scientometrics, bibliometrics holds a privileged place. Bibliometrics is one of the few subfields concerned with measuring the output side of science. According to most “histories,” bibliometrics owes its systematic development mainly to D.J. de Solla Price and Eugene Garfield, as founders. The few works conducted before the 1950s are usually relegated to prehistory. This paper documents how the systematic counting of publications originated with psychologists. In the early 1900s, psychologists began collecting statistics on their discipline. Publications came to be counted in addresses, reviews and histories of psychology for several decades. The aim was to contribute to the advancement of psychology. Far from being a negligible output of a prehistoric type, both the volume and the systematicness of these efforts are witnesses to what should be considered as pioneering work, and their authors considered as forerunners to bibliometrics.
PL
Pośród wielu statystyk dotyczących nauki, nazywanych naukometrią, bibliometria zajmuje szczególne miejsce. Jest jedną z niewielu poddziedzin, skupiających się na mierzeniu wytwórczego wymiaru nauki. Zgodnie z większością „historii” bibliometria zawdzięcza swój systematyczny rozwój przede wszystkim D.J. de Solla Price’owi i Eugene’owi Garfieldowi, jej twórcom. Kilka prac wykonanych przed latami 50. XX wieku przeważnie umieszcza się w prehistorii. Niniejszy artykuł dowodzi, że systematyczne liczenie publikacji zaczęło się od psychologów. Na początku XX wieku zaczęli oni zbierać statystyki dotyczące swojej dyscypliny. Przez kilka dekad na poczet publikacji zaliczano przemówienia, recenzje i spisane historie psychologii. Celem zaś było przyczynienie się do rozwoju tej dziedziny. Zarówno rozmiar, jak i systematyczność tych wysiłków, niedające się sprowadzić do nieznaczących osiągnięć natury prehistorycznej, są dowodami na pionierski charakter tej pracy, zaś jej autorów należy uznać za prekursorów bibliometrii.
The aim of this article is to present the scholarly activities of Professor Edward Włodarczyk (1946–2021), a renowned expert in Pomeranian history and culture, historian of the economic history and maritime policy of Prussia, on the example of 159 selected academic publications. They have been subjected to analysis by the use of selected methods of descriptive statistics and social network analysis (SNA). The attributes of bibliographic items have been examined and the links between them visualized with the use of Gephi software. The results of the research have been used to briefly present the scholarly profile of E. Włodarczyk; they also serve the organisational purpose. A catalogue of key words (phrases) has been compiled, and the characteristic features of publications, complete with their numerical development over time, publication strategies, and main and side research directions have been established. The research shows that the scholarly and publishing activity of E. Włodarczyk was subject to certain changes over time. The most intense scholarly activity occurred in the 1990s, which was accompanied by a change in the manner of publishing. The professor’s scholarly activities centred on Szczecin, Western Pomerania and the Baltic provinces of Prussia. For this reason, E. Włodarczyk preferred particular journals, and also cared about communicating research findings in German and English (17.6%). The majority of his papers concerned the economic development of sectors and branches of the economy and were related to the second half of the 19th century (until 1918), yet over time they lost in quantitative terms and importance in favour of the papers that dealt with maritime policy, regionalism, urban history, and other issues.
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