Dr. Rubén Urbizagástegui, along with Cristina Restrepo Arango, has written another article adding to a long line of brilliant publications. His newest work, “The Growth of Brazilian Metrics Literature,” can be read in the open access publication The Journal of Scientometric Research.

Dr. Urbizagástegui has written extensively about bibliometrics. This work — an explanation of findings from his study of the production rate of articles, book chapters, and dissertations of bibliometric research in Brazil — specifically discusses not only the rate of growth in the production of literature, but also possible explanations of outside influences which have affected that growth. This quantitative study includes all literature on bibliometrics produced in Brazil from 1973 to the end of 2012. There is also a qualitative study of the same literature in a forthcoming article entitled “Bibliometrics, informetrics, scientometrics and other “metrics” in Brazil.”

Urbizagástegui and Restrepo explain that a quantitative understanding of bibliometrics within academic libraries may offer insight into how effective or ineffective search tools and methods are for patrons, and as a result how to better improve information access overall so as to promote research production across all areas of study. One of the most compelling discussions in the article focuses on a widespread perception in the early 1970’s of the lack of usefulness of quantitative studies in bibliometrics. It goes on to explain that this perception may have contributed to a punctuated production of bibliometric studies for the first nearly three decades of this study’s focus. Not until the turn of the millennium with the expansion and growth of technologic tools did quantitative bibliometric publications begin to consistently grow exponentially.

Reading Urbizagástegui's and Restrepo’s publication, an analogy kept coming to mind: information is the ocean, and libraries are tide pools. By looking at the microcosm of one, we can be informed about the whole. By forensically evaluating the effect of devaluing specific types of research and how this affects the continued production of research publications in that field, Urbizagástegui and Restrepo help to shed light on some of the causal factors of distinction or obscurity of research across all disciplines. With this in mind, the argument could be made that no research should be discounted based on perceived “uselessness” of quantitative or qualitative criteria alone, as the body of work will suffer due to a narrowed scope of consideration in the academic arena.