{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2023,9,13]],"date-time":"2023-09-13T16:44:36Z","timestamp":1694623476481},"reference-count":30,"publisher":"Emerald","issue":"6","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2004,12,1]],"date-time":"2004-12-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1101859200000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.emerald.com\/insight\/site-policies"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2004,12,1]]},"abstract":"The 1960s saw the birth of what is now called \u201cscientometrics\u201d. One of the queries that arose then related to citations of previous literature. Was recent literature cited proportionately more than older literature? Studies by Price, along with that reprinted here, seemed to indicate that the answer was \u201cyes\u201d. This \u201cimmediacy effect\u201d, as it was labelled, could be measured in quantitative terms, but how to do so required some thought. For example, what was the best form of index for representing immediacy, and what errors were involved in estimating the effect? Discussions of the usage of past literature could have practical implications for libraries. One question, therefore, was what implications, if any, citation studies had for the provision of journals to library users. On the scientometrics side, there were such questions as why an immediacy effect occurred and to what extent it could be discerned in different subject areas. This article surveys attempts to examine questions like these over the period from the 1960s to the present day, updating an article published in Journal of Documentation<\/jats:italic> in 1967.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1108\/00220410410568115","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2004,11,3]],"date-time":"2004-11-03T04:45:54Z","timestamp":1099457154000},"page":"601-608","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":3,"title":["The immediacy effect \u2013 then and now"],"prefix":"10.1108","volume":"60","author":[{"given":"Jack","family":"Meadows","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]}],"member":"140","reference":[{"key":"key2022031220343569600_b1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Asai, I. (1981), \u201cAdjusted age distribution and its applications to impact factor and immediacy index\u201d, Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Vol. 32 No. 3, pp. 172\u20104.","DOI":"10.1002\/asi.4630320303"},{"key":"key2022031220343569600_b2","unstructured":"Brodman, E. (1944), \u201cChoosing physiology journals\u201d, Bulletin of the Medical Library Association, Vol. 32, pp. 479\u201083."},{"key":"key2022031220343569600_b3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Brookes, B.C. (1970a), \u201cThe growth, utility, and obsolescence of scientific periodical literature\u201d, Journal of Documentation, Vol. 26 No. 4, pp. 283\u201094.","DOI":"10.1108\/eb026500"},{"key":"key2022031220343569600_b4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Brookes, B.C. (1970b), \u201cObsolescence of special library periodicals: sampling errors and utility curves\u201d, Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Vol. 21 No. 5, pp. 320\u20109.","DOI":"10.1002\/asi.4630210503"},{"key":"key2022031220343569600_b5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Burton, R.E. and Kebler, R.W. (1960), \u201cThe half\u2010life of some scientific and technical literature\u201d, American Documentation, Vol. 11 No. 1, pp. 18\u201022.","DOI":"10.1002\/asi.5090110105"},{"key":"key2022031220343569600_b6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Cole, S. (1983), \u201cThe hierarchy of the sciences?\u201d, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 89 No. 1, pp. 111\u201039.","DOI":"10.1086\/227835"},{"key":"key2022031220343569600_b7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Fussler, H.H. (1949), \u201cCharacteristics of the research literature used by chemists and physicists in the United States. Part I\u201d, Library Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 19\u201035.","DOI":"10.1086\/617501"},{"key":"key2022031220343569600_b8","unstructured":"Gapen, D.K. and Milner, S.P. (1981), \u201cObsolescence\u201d, Library Trends, Vol. 30 No. 1, pp. 107\u201024."},{"key":"key2022031220343569600_b9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Gross, P.L.K. and Gross, E.M. (1927), \u201cCollege libraries and chemical education\u201d, Science, Vol. 66, October, pp. 385\u20109.","DOI":"10.1126\/science.66.1713.385"},{"key":"key2022031220343569600_b10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Gupta, U. (1990), \u201cObsolescence of physics literature: exponential decrease of the density of citations to Physical Review articles with age\u201d, Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Vol. 41, pp. 282\u20107.","DOI":"10.1002\/(SICI)1097-4571(199006)41:4<282::AID-ASI7>3.0.CO;2-1"},{"key":"key2022031220343569600_b11","unstructured":"King, D.W., McDonald, D.D. and Roderer, N.K. (1981), Scientific Journals in the United States, Hutchinson Ross, Stroudsberg, PA, p. 201."},{"key":"key2022031220343569600_b12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Line, M.B. (1970), \u201cThe \u2018half\u2010life\u2019 of periodical literature: apparent and real obsolescence\u201d, Journal of Documentation, Vol. 26 No. 1, pp. 46\u201054.","DOI":"10.1108\/eb026486"},{"key":"key2022031220343569600_b13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Line, M.B. and Sandison, A. (1974), \u201c\u2018Obsolescence\u2019 and changes in the use of literature with time\u201d, Journal of Documentation, Vol. 30 No. 3, pp. 283\u2010350.","DOI":"10.1108\/eb026583"},{"key":"key2022031220343569600_b14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Marton, J. (1985), \u201cObsolescence of immediacy? Evidence supporting Price's hypothesis\u201d, Scientometrics, Vol. 7, pp. 145\u201053.","DOI":"10.1007\/BF02017142"},{"key":"key2022031220343569600_b15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Meadows, A.J. (1967), \u201cThe citation characteristics of astronomical research literature\u201d, Journal of Documentation, Vol. 23 No. 1, pp. 28\u201033.","DOI":"10.1108\/eb026418"},{"key":"key2022031220343569600_b16","unstructured":"Meadows, A.J. (1974), Communication in Science, Butterworths, London."},{"key":"key2022031220343569600_b17","unstructured":"Morrisey, L.J. (2002), \u201cBibliometric and bibliographic analysis in an era of electronic scholarly communication\u201d, in Wei, W. (Ed.), Scholarly Communication in Science and Engineering Research in Higher Education, Haworth Information Press, Binghamton, NY, pp. 149\u201060."},{"key":"key2022031220343569600_b18","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Price, D.J. (1963), Little Science, Big Science, Columbia University Press, New York, NY.","DOI":"10.7312\/pric91844"},{"key":"key2022031220343569600_b19","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Price, D.J. (1965), \u201cNetworks of scientific papers\u201d, Science, Vol. 149, pp. 510\u201015.","DOI":"10.1126\/science.149.3683.510"},{"key":"key2022031220343569600_b20","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Price, D.J. (1976), \u201cA general theory of bibliometric and other cumulative advantage processes\u201d, Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Vol. 27, pp. 292\u2010306.","DOI":"10.1002\/asi.4630270505"},{"key":"key2022031220343569600_b21","unstructured":"Rousseau, R. (2000), \u201cExponential decline in the use distribution of medical journals\u201d, Journal of Documentation, Vol. 56 No. 4, pp. 454\u20105."},{"key":"key2022031220343569600_b22","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Sandison, A. (1971), \u201cThe use of older literature and its obsolescence\u201d, Journal of Documentation, Vol. 27 No. 3, pp. 184\u201099.","DOI":"10.1108\/eb026516"},{"key":"key2022031220343569600_b23","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Sandison, A. (1974), \u201cDensities of use, and absence of obsolescence, in physics journals at MIT\u201d, Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Vol. 25, pp. 172\u201082.","DOI":"10.1002\/asi.4630250308"},{"key":"key2022031220343569600_b24","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Stinson, E.R. and Lancaster, F.W. (1987), \u201cSynchronous versus diachronous methods in the measurement of obsolescence by citation studies\u201d, Journal of Information Science, Vol. 13 No. 2, pp. 65\u201074.","DOI":"10.1177\/016555158701300201"},{"key":"key2022031220343569600_b25","unstructured":"Sullivan, M.V., Vadeboncoeur, B., Shiotani, N. and Stangl, P. (1980), \u201cObsolescence in biomedical journals: not an artifact of literature growth\u201d, Library Research, Vol. 2, pp. 29\u201046."},{"key":"key2022031220343569600_b26","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Szava\u2010Kovats, E. (2002), \u201cUnfounded attribution of the \u2018half\u2010life\u2019 index\u2010number of literature obsolescence to Burton and Kebler: a literature science study\u201d, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Vol. 53 No. 13, pp. 1098\u2010105.","DOI":"10.1002\/asi.10105"},{"key":"key2022031220343569600_b27","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Taylor, C.R. (1976), \u201cA practical solution to weeding university library collections\u201d, Collection Management, Vol. 1 No. 3\/4, pp. 27\u201045.","DOI":"10.1300\/J105v01n03_03"},{"key":"key2022031220343569600_b28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Tomer, C. 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