Abstract
It is pointed out that the so-called “Bradford distribution” derived by Leimkuhler is more properly viewed as the theoretical form of a variant of the Lorenz curve. The equation of this Leimkuhler curve allows an easy calculation of the Gini coefficient of concentration which can be compared with empirical values.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
S.C. Bradford, Sources of information on specific subjects,Engineering, 137 (1934) 85–86.
S.C. Bradford,Documentation, London, Crosby Lockwood, 1948.
F.F. Leimkuhler, The Bradford distribution,Journal of Documentation, 23 (1967) 197–207.
M.G. Kendall, A. Stuart, J.K. Ord,The Advanced Theory of Statistics, Vol. 1,Distribution Theory (5th ed.), London, Griffin, 1987
Q.L. Burrell, The 80/20 rule: library lore or statistical law,Journal of Documentation, 41 (1985) 24–39.
R.W. Trueswell, Determining the optimal number of volumes for a library's core collection,Libri, 16 (1966) 49–60.
R.W. Trueswell, Some behavioural patterns of library users: the 80/20 rule,Wilson Library Bulletin, 43 (1969) 458–461.
R.W. Trueswell, Growing libraries: who needs them? A statistical basis for the no-growth collection, InD. Gore, (Ed.),Farewell to Alexandria: Solutions to Space, Growth and Performance Problems of Libraries, Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood Press, 1976, pp. 72–104.
Q.L. Burrell, The non-equivalence of the Bradford, Leimkuhler and Lotka laws. Research Report, Statistical Laboratory, University of Manchester, 1990.
B.C. Brookes, The derivation and application of the Bradford-Zipf distribution,Journal of Documentation, 24 (1968) 247–265.
L. Egghe, A note on different Bradford multipliers,Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 41 (1990) 204–209.
L. Egghe, Applications of the theory of Bradford's law to the calculation of Leimkuhler's law and to the completion of bibliographies,Journal of the American Society for Information Science, (to appear).
M.G. Kendall, The bibliography of operational research,Operational Research Quarterly, 11 (1960) 31–36.
W. Goffman, K.S. Warren, Dispersion of papers among journals based on a mathematical analysis of two diverse medical literatures,Nature, 221 (1969) 1205–1207.
A. Pope, Bradford's law and the periodical literature of information science,Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 36 (1975) 207–213.
L. Sachs,A Guide to Statistical Methods and to the Pertinent Literature, Literatur zur angewandte statistik, Berlin, Springer-Verlag, 1986.
A.D. Pratt, A measure of class concentration in bibliometrics,Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 28 (1977) 285–292.
M.P. Carpenter, Similarity of Pratt's measure of class concentration to the Gini index,Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 30 (1979) 108–110.
L. Egghe, Pratt's measure for some bibliometric distributions and its relation with the 80/20 rule,Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 38 (1987) 288–297.
L. Egghe, R. Rousseau, Elements of concentration theory, In:L. Egghe, R. Rousseau, (Eds),Informetrics 89/90, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1990.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Burrell, Q.L. The Bradford distribution and the Gini index. Scientometrics 21, 181–194 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02017568
Received:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02017568