Bibliometric mapping of science in a policy context

Despite the promising introduction of bibliometric maps of science in a science policy context in the nineteen seventies, they have not been very successful yet. It seems, however, that only now they are becoming acknowledged as a useful tool. This is mainly due to the developments and integration of hypertext and graphical interfaces. Because of this, the strength of such navigation tools becomes obvious. The communication through the Internet enables the field expert (as a kind of peer review) as well as the user (from a science policy context) to contribute to the quality of the map and the interface. Moreover, the interface can provide suggestions to answer policy-related question, which is the initial purpose of such maps.