Development of Bibliometrics as a Scientific Field

This paper discusses the stages of development of bibliometrics based on data obtained from the Web of Science Core Collection database (WoS CC) for 1975-2019. It is shown that starting from the 2000s the number of publications on bibliometric topics has been growing exponentially and the Hirsch index has also increased significantly. It is found that the most cited publications of 1975-2000 had a general theoretical and methodological focus, while the publications of 2001-2019 were related to the intensive development of Internet technologies and databases that allow working with Big Data. Bibliometrics penetrated almost all scientific areas; it was found that while in 1975-2000 the WoS CC category Information Science & Library Science concentrated 60% of the documents on bibliometrics, while in 2001-2019 this category accounted for only 32% of all documents, and the rest of the publications were distributed over almost all subject categories of the WoS CC. In the last decade, the most popular publications have been those made at the intersection of different sciences with the simultaneous use of advanced computer technologies and bibliometric methods.