Proceedings literature as additional data source for bibliometric analysis

Scientific meetings have become increasingly important channels for scholarly communi-cation. In several fields of applied and engineering sciences they are-according to the statements of scientists active in those fields-even more important than publishing in periodicals. One objective of this study is to analyse the weight of proceedings literature in all fields of the sciences, social sciences and humanities as well as the use of the ISI Proceedings database as additional data source for bibliometric studies. The second objective is exploring the use of a further important feature of this database, namely, of information about conference location for the analysis of bibliometrically relevant aspects of information flow such as the relative attractivity, the extent of mobility and unidirectional or mutual affinity of countries.