A bibliometric analysis, updating Garfield’s previous study of 1985, shows that Derek Price’s Little science, big science (LSBS) has been cited on more than 1,500 occasions since its publication in 1963. Content analysis of these citations shows that Price’s work has inspired the formation and subsequent development of several distinct communities of scholarly practice, including the history, sociology, politics and ‘science’ of science. In library and information science, LSBS is best remembered for its model of the exponential growth of scientific literature. Recent scientometric work has demonstrated that other mathematical models may prove a better fit to data on the actual growth of the literature in various fields; of these alternatives, the power model is most commonly invoked as an all-purpose descriptor of growth processes in electronic communication systems such as the Web. Price’s work thus retains its relevance, 40 years on, for the webometricians of today.
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