The half-life of scientific literature in library and information science and the influence of thematic issues

Following the formula developed by Burton and Kebler, this paper presents a calculation of the half-life of bibliographical references appearing in twenty-eight English- and Spanish-language Library and Information Science journals in the year 2006. An analysis of the relationship of this phenomenon to content is carried out in order to identify the nuclear topic areas that in turn determine this half-life. Moreover, the paper provides an assessment of those subject areas for each of the journals studied that tend to lengthen or shorten the half-life of a given bibliographic reference. As such, the bibliographic half-life may be considered an indicator of the thematic inclination of a given journal.