Rong Tang | Simmons University (original) (raw)
Papers by Rong Tang
Proceedings of the 2001 International ACM SIGGROUP Conference on Supporting Group Work - GROUP '01, 2001
... INTRODUCTION Ever since the Internet and World Wide Web revolutionized the information delive... more ... INTRODUCTION Ever since the Internet and World Wide Web revolutionized the information delivery technology, information overload becomes a crucial problem in people's daily life. A recent survey by UC Berkley reports ...
Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 2005
Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2009
Citation statistics can affect major professional decisions, but little is known about how import... more Citation statistics can affect major professional decisions, but little is known about how important a particular reference is to the citing document. We asked 49 psychologists to rate the importance of every reference in their own empirical paper and to indicate the primary citation reason. References cited for conceptual ideas or to justify methods and data analyses were regarded as more important than references cited for general background, limitations, or future research. The location, frequency, and length of a citation predicted its importance, but such relationships were weaker for self-citations. We make suggestions about referencing for authors, editors, and bibliographic database designers.
An investigation of links to 89 US academic departments from three different disciplines gave ins... more An investigation of links to 89 US academic departments from three different disciplines gave insights into the kinds of international regions and national domains that linked to them. Here we describe our data collection and analysis procedure. While we found significant correlations between total counts of international inlinks and total publication impact in Psychology and Chemistry, counts of international inlinks to History departments were too small to form a significant correlation. The correlations suggest that international links may provide evidence of scholarly communication patterns. History departments attracted a significantly lower percentage of international inlinks than to those of Chemistry and Psychology, but the main source of links for all three disciplines was from Europe. Analyses of mainly national inlinks, characterized by gTLDs (generic Top Level Domains), showed that the major source of links for all disciplines was .edu sites, followed by .com, .org, .net. As a whole, regional disciplinary differences were stronger than gTLD differences, although both differences were small. This could be surprising, given the choice of a hard science, a social science and a humanities discipline.
The Library Quarterly, 2008
Library & Information Science Research, 2003
This article explores disciplinary differences in academic Web-site interlinking using the univer... more This article explores disciplinary differences in academic Web-site interlinking using the university departments of chemistry, psychology, and history. Research has suggested that Web-link counts are related to research productivity and geographic distance between source and target, but no previous Webometric studies have comparatively analyzed academic departments from different disciplines. This study shows large differences in Web use by discipline for both Web-site size and the extent of interlinking, with the history department making little use of the Web and the chemistry department the most. There are significant correlations between in-links and research impact for the psychology and chemistry departments, with a stronger association for the psychology department. There was little evidence, however, of a geographic trend in interlinking.
This paper presents the results of a diary study involving 49 university students reporting how t... more This paper presents the results of a diary study involving 49 university students reporting how they consume and react to news via their mobile phones. In their diary entries, participants used 23 pairs of semantic differential scales to express their reactions. Out of 265 political and society news items submitted, 68 were inclusion/exclusion-related news. The most frequent categories of inclusion/exclusion news were related to “ethnicity/race,” “gender/sexual orientation,” and “religion,” and these three groups of news items counted for over 85% of all inclusion/exclusion related news that were submitted. Significant differences were found in participants’ choices of semantic adjectives between inclusion news and exclusion news, as well as between inclusion/exclusion news and general news. Findings provide an insightful understanding of the interests, value judgment, and emotional attachments of university students in the US to inclusion/exclusion and to general news.
Journal of Library and Information Studies, 2016
As a primary digital library portal for astrophysics researchers, SAO/NASA ADS (Astrophysics Data... more As a primary digital library portal for astrophysics researchers, SAO/NASA ADS (Astrophysics Data System) 2.0 interface features several visualization tools such as Author Network and Metrics. This research study involves 20 ADS long term users who participated in a usability and eye tracking research session. Participants first completed a cognitive test, and then performed five tasks in ADS 2.0 where they explored its multiple visualization tools. Results show that over half of the participants were Imagers and half of the participants were Analytic. Cognitive styles were found to have significant impacts on several efficiency-based measures. Analytic-oriented participants were observed to spent shorter time on web pages and apps, made fewer web page changes than less-Analytic-driving participants in performing common tasks, whereas AI (Analytic-Imagery) participants also completed their five tasks faster than non-AI participants. Meanwhile, self-identified Imagery participants we...
Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology
The Research Data Management Librarian Academy (RDMLA) is a global professional development onlin... more The Research Data Management Librarian Academy (RDMLA) is a global professional development online program for librarians and other professionals working in research‐intensive environments. To reach a broader learner community, the RDMLA team established a Chinese translation partnership with the National Taiwan University (NTU) Library in early 2020. Through collaborative problem solving, positive participation, inclusive coordination, and leveraging of teams' strengths, the project has succeeded in its mission, with the translated course due to launch in October 2021. Featuring team workflow illustrations and contributions, this poster covers collaborative translation processes and lessons learned, hoping to inspire similar international partnership projects.
Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology
With rising cases of brutality, gun violence, and racial injustice towards particularly the Black... more With rising cases of brutality, gun violence, and racial injustice towards particularly the Black and AAPI (Asians, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders) communities, racism is being recognized and declared as an emergency and public health threat. Diversity, equity, and antiracism are core to the Library and Information Science (LIS) profession as we strive to uphold the principle of “libraries serve humanities” and the motto of “free to all.” During this extended period of “racial‐injustice as a public crisis”, what are the roles of LIS professionals in battling racism, violence, and other systems of oppression? This panel session features experienced LIS professionals and educators who specialize in DEI, reporting their activities, stories, and thoughts on antiracism. A breakout room activity is envisioned following panelists' presentations, with participants discussing and sharing their antiracism initiatives. Participants will also brainstorm the next course of action in the LIS profession's journey in battling racism.
Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology
Launched in October 2019, the Research Data Management Librarian Academy (RDMLA) addresses the le... more Launched in October 2019, the Research Data Management Librarian Academy (RDMLA) addresses the learning gaps in RDM training. Through a unique partnership among practicing librarians, LIS faculty, and industry, the RDMLA has produced a dynamic open learning experience, highlighting the benefits of collaboration and skill‐sharing. This collaboration's success lies in how the project leveraged each partner's strengths and experience while centering on the shared purpose, dedication to equitable learning, and mutual respect among the team members. This panel focuses on the collaborative efforts undertaken by the RDMLA leadership and instructors to develop an open‐access professional development education program. Five panelists will share their experience working on this large collaborative project from varying perspectives, the lessons learned while developing their content, the challenges they encountered, and their understanding of the benefits of such a collaborative endeavor in producing free, open‐access learning to foster a community of practice in RDM.
Data and Information Management
In this paper, we report the results of a meta-analysis of 50 publications on international Open ... more In this paper, we report the results of a meta-analysis of 50 publications on international Open Government Data (OGD) practices instantiated via their OGD sites or portals. Specific information about 67 individual countries’/regions’ OGD sites was extracted and compared, including the levels of OGDs, the number and types of data formats, the number of datasets, and the number and types of data categories. Upon comparing the data characteristics by types and countries, the top 10 countries based on the number of data formats, datasets, and data categories were presented. Significant correlations were found among individual countries’ number of data formats, datasets, and data categories. Follow-up research that examines, confirms, and traces the data processing capacity of international OGDs is currently underway.
Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology
In this poster, we report the preliminary results of an inventory of 149 publicly accessible acti... more In this poster, we report the preliminary results of an inventory of 149 publicly accessible active COVID‐19 tracking systems. Key findings include the frequency distribution of the systems' web domain names, the countries where the systems were created, the languages they support, the visual display format, the map platforms, and the data sources. These findings help to advance the knowledge of the data characteristics and design of pandemic surveillance/tracking systems.
Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology
This paper reports the results of a multi‐phased investigation into Open Government Data (OGD) si... more This paper reports the results of a multi‐phased investigation into Open Government Data (OGD) sites in the United States. Upon searching and examining OGD sites by state and state capital, we outlined current OGD practice in the US. An inventory of data processing capabilities of 50 OGD sites uncovered the most frequently occurring data categories, search and filter options, raw datasets, data visualization displays, data extraction formats, interactive and map tools, and help functions provided through the OGD sites. Heuristic evaluation of 15 sites containing “Transportation” datasets revealed that main usability problems were violations to the principles of “Flexibility and Efficiency of Use,” “Help and Documentation,” and “Help users to recognize, diagnose and recover from errors.” Findings suggest that in order to sustain and achieve a good usage of OGD sites, a significantly better understanding of user populations, their data needs, and their data literacy levels is needed.
Data and Information Management
This paper reports the results of an international survey on research data management (RDM) servi... more This paper reports the results of an international survey on research data management (RDM) services in libraries. More than 240 practicing librarians responded to the survey and outlined their roles and levels of preparedness in providing RDM services, challenges their libraries face, and knowledge and skills that they deemed essential to advance the RDM practice. Findings of the study revealed not only a number of location and organizational differences in RDM services and tools provided but also the impact of the level of preparedness and degree of development in RDM roles on the types of RDM services provided. Respondents’ perceptions on both the current challenges and future roles of RDM services were also examined. With a majority of the respondents recognizing the importance of RDM and hoping to receive more training while expressing concerns of lack of bandwidth or capacity in this area, it is clear that, in order to grow RDM services, institutional commitment to resources a...
Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology
This paper reports a usability and user experience research study of PBCore.org, a WGBH website s... more This paper reports a usability and user experience research study of PBCore.org, a WGBH website supporting the PBCore metadata dictionary. Usability testing was conducted with 53 participants who worked in audiovisual processing and archiving. Significant differences in task performances and interaction experiences among user groups were found, most notably between broadcast and information professionals, archivists/librarians and other staff, and participants who had an LIS degree and those who did not. Qualitative observations afforded a deeper understanding of the difficulties that non‐LIS participants encountered. Recommendations for designing a more inclusive technical website include providing contextual and practical information on the homepage, delivering technical content visually and interactively, offering understandable definitions of terminology, and building a vibrant user community. Further research documenting users' knowledge gaps would be valuable. The paper concludes with a call for developing specific usability requirements for technical websites to create an inclusive and accessible user experience.
Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology
This panel continues an interactive discussion begun at the ALISE 2018 conference. Designed prima... more This panel continues an interactive discussion begun at the ALISE 2018 conference. Designed primarily to benefit new tenure track faculty, doctoral students, and academic librarians, the session looks to attract attendees seeking advice and those with expertise to share. Using the World Café Discussion format, the goals for the session are to develop further a conceptual framework and identify critical success factors for bridging teaching and research. Discussion themes will be the same as the ALISE special session with sub‐points informed by literature and by the discussion from ALISE 2018 conference: 1) How can research inform teaching? 2) How can teaching inform research? 3) What strategies can be applied in bridging teaching and research? The panelists facilitating the discussion are ALISE board members who are also active members of ASIS&T and the iSchools Organization.
Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
An empirical investigation of citations to 150 publications in the field of Information and Libra... more An empirical investigation of citations to 150 publications in the field of Information and Library Science (ILS) has enabled mapping of the development of the interdisciplinary scope of the ILS field. The publications were drawn randomly in six years between 1975 and 2000, with 25 articles each from the selected years. Networkbased graphical presentation of number of extradisciplinary citations show that the field attracts a significant wide spectrum of disciplines in the domains of science, social science, and the humanities, and that the kinds of disciplines interested in the field vary by year. ANOVA result based on the number of extradisciplines was significant and the linear contract between the year group of 1975,1980,1985 and the year group of 1990, 1995, 2000 was highly statistically significant. Interdisciplinary diversity was further examined through measures of Citations Outside Category and Brillouin's Index. Kruskal Wallis test showed significant results, however, when the two measures were considered independently, only the contrast of the year of 1990 to the prior three years was significant.
College & Research Libraries
The present study investigates citations to 750 randomly selected scholarly monographs in discipl... more The present study investigates citations to 750 randomly selected scholarly monographs in disciplines of religion, history, psychology, economics, mathematics, and physics. The objective of the study is to understand distributions of citations to scholarly monographs in various disciplines, to explore disciplinary difference in the citing of books, and to compare citations to monographs with previous results on citations to journal articles. The data revealed interesting citation patterns and aging effects that are in several aspects different from citation data based on the journal literature. While the distribution trend of monographic uncitedness is similar to that of journals across the disciplines, the noncitation ratios are much lower than what has been reported about journal citations. Half-life measures of scientific monographs are greater than those in the humanities and social sciences; this contradicts previous findings. Citation frequency and Price's Index vary from ...
Proceedings of the 2001 International ACM SIGGROUP Conference on Supporting Group Work - GROUP '01, 2001
... INTRODUCTION Ever since the Internet and World Wide Web revolutionized the information delive... more ... INTRODUCTION Ever since the Internet and World Wide Web revolutionized the information delivery technology, information overload becomes a crucial problem in people's daily life. A recent survey by UC Berkley reports ...
Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 2005
Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2009
Citation statistics can affect major professional decisions, but little is known about how import... more Citation statistics can affect major professional decisions, but little is known about how important a particular reference is to the citing document. We asked 49 psychologists to rate the importance of every reference in their own empirical paper and to indicate the primary citation reason. References cited for conceptual ideas or to justify methods and data analyses were regarded as more important than references cited for general background, limitations, or future research. The location, frequency, and length of a citation predicted its importance, but such relationships were weaker for self-citations. We make suggestions about referencing for authors, editors, and bibliographic database designers.
An investigation of links to 89 US academic departments from three different disciplines gave ins... more An investigation of links to 89 US academic departments from three different disciplines gave insights into the kinds of international regions and national domains that linked to them. Here we describe our data collection and analysis procedure. While we found significant correlations between total counts of international inlinks and total publication impact in Psychology and Chemistry, counts of international inlinks to History departments were too small to form a significant correlation. The correlations suggest that international links may provide evidence of scholarly communication patterns. History departments attracted a significantly lower percentage of international inlinks than to those of Chemistry and Psychology, but the main source of links for all three disciplines was from Europe. Analyses of mainly national inlinks, characterized by gTLDs (generic Top Level Domains), showed that the major source of links for all disciplines was .edu sites, followed by .com, .org, .net. As a whole, regional disciplinary differences were stronger than gTLD differences, although both differences were small. This could be surprising, given the choice of a hard science, a social science and a humanities discipline.
The Library Quarterly, 2008
Library & Information Science Research, 2003
This article explores disciplinary differences in academic Web-site interlinking using the univer... more This article explores disciplinary differences in academic Web-site interlinking using the university departments of chemistry, psychology, and history. Research has suggested that Web-link counts are related to research productivity and geographic distance between source and target, but no previous Webometric studies have comparatively analyzed academic departments from different disciplines. This study shows large differences in Web use by discipline for both Web-site size and the extent of interlinking, with the history department making little use of the Web and the chemistry department the most. There are significant correlations between in-links and research impact for the psychology and chemistry departments, with a stronger association for the psychology department. There was little evidence, however, of a geographic trend in interlinking.
This paper presents the results of a diary study involving 49 university students reporting how t... more This paper presents the results of a diary study involving 49 university students reporting how they consume and react to news via their mobile phones. In their diary entries, participants used 23 pairs of semantic differential scales to express their reactions. Out of 265 political and society news items submitted, 68 were inclusion/exclusion-related news. The most frequent categories of inclusion/exclusion news were related to “ethnicity/race,” “gender/sexual orientation,” and “religion,” and these three groups of news items counted for over 85% of all inclusion/exclusion related news that were submitted. Significant differences were found in participants’ choices of semantic adjectives between inclusion news and exclusion news, as well as between inclusion/exclusion news and general news. Findings provide an insightful understanding of the interests, value judgment, and emotional attachments of university students in the US to inclusion/exclusion and to general news.
Journal of Library and Information Studies, 2016
As a primary digital library portal for astrophysics researchers, SAO/NASA ADS (Astrophysics Data... more As a primary digital library portal for astrophysics researchers, SAO/NASA ADS (Astrophysics Data System) 2.0 interface features several visualization tools such as Author Network and Metrics. This research study involves 20 ADS long term users who participated in a usability and eye tracking research session. Participants first completed a cognitive test, and then performed five tasks in ADS 2.0 where they explored its multiple visualization tools. Results show that over half of the participants were Imagers and half of the participants were Analytic. Cognitive styles were found to have significant impacts on several efficiency-based measures. Analytic-oriented participants were observed to spent shorter time on web pages and apps, made fewer web page changes than less-Analytic-driving participants in performing common tasks, whereas AI (Analytic-Imagery) participants also completed their five tasks faster than non-AI participants. Meanwhile, self-identified Imagery participants we...
Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology
The Research Data Management Librarian Academy (RDMLA) is a global professional development onlin... more The Research Data Management Librarian Academy (RDMLA) is a global professional development online program for librarians and other professionals working in research‐intensive environments. To reach a broader learner community, the RDMLA team established a Chinese translation partnership with the National Taiwan University (NTU) Library in early 2020. Through collaborative problem solving, positive participation, inclusive coordination, and leveraging of teams' strengths, the project has succeeded in its mission, with the translated course due to launch in October 2021. Featuring team workflow illustrations and contributions, this poster covers collaborative translation processes and lessons learned, hoping to inspire similar international partnership projects.
Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology
With rising cases of brutality, gun violence, and racial injustice towards particularly the Black... more With rising cases of brutality, gun violence, and racial injustice towards particularly the Black and AAPI (Asians, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders) communities, racism is being recognized and declared as an emergency and public health threat. Diversity, equity, and antiracism are core to the Library and Information Science (LIS) profession as we strive to uphold the principle of “libraries serve humanities” and the motto of “free to all.” During this extended period of “racial‐injustice as a public crisis”, what are the roles of LIS professionals in battling racism, violence, and other systems of oppression? This panel session features experienced LIS professionals and educators who specialize in DEI, reporting their activities, stories, and thoughts on antiracism. A breakout room activity is envisioned following panelists' presentations, with participants discussing and sharing their antiracism initiatives. Participants will also brainstorm the next course of action in the LIS profession's journey in battling racism.
Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology
Launched in October 2019, the Research Data Management Librarian Academy (RDMLA) addresses the le... more Launched in October 2019, the Research Data Management Librarian Academy (RDMLA) addresses the learning gaps in RDM training. Through a unique partnership among practicing librarians, LIS faculty, and industry, the RDMLA has produced a dynamic open learning experience, highlighting the benefits of collaboration and skill‐sharing. This collaboration's success lies in how the project leveraged each partner's strengths and experience while centering on the shared purpose, dedication to equitable learning, and mutual respect among the team members. This panel focuses on the collaborative efforts undertaken by the RDMLA leadership and instructors to develop an open‐access professional development education program. Five panelists will share their experience working on this large collaborative project from varying perspectives, the lessons learned while developing their content, the challenges they encountered, and their understanding of the benefits of such a collaborative endeavor in producing free, open‐access learning to foster a community of practice in RDM.
Data and Information Management
In this paper, we report the results of a meta-analysis of 50 publications on international Open ... more In this paper, we report the results of a meta-analysis of 50 publications on international Open Government Data (OGD) practices instantiated via their OGD sites or portals. Specific information about 67 individual countries’/regions’ OGD sites was extracted and compared, including the levels of OGDs, the number and types of data formats, the number of datasets, and the number and types of data categories. Upon comparing the data characteristics by types and countries, the top 10 countries based on the number of data formats, datasets, and data categories were presented. Significant correlations were found among individual countries’ number of data formats, datasets, and data categories. Follow-up research that examines, confirms, and traces the data processing capacity of international OGDs is currently underway.
Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology
In this poster, we report the preliminary results of an inventory of 149 publicly accessible acti... more In this poster, we report the preliminary results of an inventory of 149 publicly accessible active COVID‐19 tracking systems. Key findings include the frequency distribution of the systems' web domain names, the countries where the systems were created, the languages they support, the visual display format, the map platforms, and the data sources. These findings help to advance the knowledge of the data characteristics and design of pandemic surveillance/tracking systems.
Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology
This paper reports the results of a multi‐phased investigation into Open Government Data (OGD) si... more This paper reports the results of a multi‐phased investigation into Open Government Data (OGD) sites in the United States. Upon searching and examining OGD sites by state and state capital, we outlined current OGD practice in the US. An inventory of data processing capabilities of 50 OGD sites uncovered the most frequently occurring data categories, search and filter options, raw datasets, data visualization displays, data extraction formats, interactive and map tools, and help functions provided through the OGD sites. Heuristic evaluation of 15 sites containing “Transportation” datasets revealed that main usability problems were violations to the principles of “Flexibility and Efficiency of Use,” “Help and Documentation,” and “Help users to recognize, diagnose and recover from errors.” Findings suggest that in order to sustain and achieve a good usage of OGD sites, a significantly better understanding of user populations, their data needs, and their data literacy levels is needed.
Data and Information Management
This paper reports the results of an international survey on research data management (RDM) servi... more This paper reports the results of an international survey on research data management (RDM) services in libraries. More than 240 practicing librarians responded to the survey and outlined their roles and levels of preparedness in providing RDM services, challenges their libraries face, and knowledge and skills that they deemed essential to advance the RDM practice. Findings of the study revealed not only a number of location and organizational differences in RDM services and tools provided but also the impact of the level of preparedness and degree of development in RDM roles on the types of RDM services provided. Respondents’ perceptions on both the current challenges and future roles of RDM services were also examined. With a majority of the respondents recognizing the importance of RDM and hoping to receive more training while expressing concerns of lack of bandwidth or capacity in this area, it is clear that, in order to grow RDM services, institutional commitment to resources a...
Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology
This paper reports a usability and user experience research study of PBCore.org, a WGBH website s... more This paper reports a usability and user experience research study of PBCore.org, a WGBH website supporting the PBCore metadata dictionary. Usability testing was conducted with 53 participants who worked in audiovisual processing and archiving. Significant differences in task performances and interaction experiences among user groups were found, most notably between broadcast and information professionals, archivists/librarians and other staff, and participants who had an LIS degree and those who did not. Qualitative observations afforded a deeper understanding of the difficulties that non‐LIS participants encountered. Recommendations for designing a more inclusive technical website include providing contextual and practical information on the homepage, delivering technical content visually and interactively, offering understandable definitions of terminology, and building a vibrant user community. Further research documenting users' knowledge gaps would be valuable. The paper concludes with a call for developing specific usability requirements for technical websites to create an inclusive and accessible user experience.
Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology
This panel continues an interactive discussion begun at the ALISE 2018 conference. Designed prima... more This panel continues an interactive discussion begun at the ALISE 2018 conference. Designed primarily to benefit new tenure track faculty, doctoral students, and academic librarians, the session looks to attract attendees seeking advice and those with expertise to share. Using the World Café Discussion format, the goals for the session are to develop further a conceptual framework and identify critical success factors for bridging teaching and research. Discussion themes will be the same as the ALISE special session with sub‐points informed by literature and by the discussion from ALISE 2018 conference: 1) How can research inform teaching? 2) How can teaching inform research? 3) What strategies can be applied in bridging teaching and research? The panelists facilitating the discussion are ALISE board members who are also active members of ASIS&T and the iSchools Organization.
Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
An empirical investigation of citations to 150 publications in the field of Information and Libra... more An empirical investigation of citations to 150 publications in the field of Information and Library Science (ILS) has enabled mapping of the development of the interdisciplinary scope of the ILS field. The publications were drawn randomly in six years between 1975 and 2000, with 25 articles each from the selected years. Networkbased graphical presentation of number of extradisciplinary citations show that the field attracts a significant wide spectrum of disciplines in the domains of science, social science, and the humanities, and that the kinds of disciplines interested in the field vary by year. ANOVA result based on the number of extradisciplines was significant and the linear contract between the year group of 1975,1980,1985 and the year group of 1990, 1995, 2000 was highly statistically significant. Interdisciplinary diversity was further examined through measures of Citations Outside Category and Brillouin's Index. Kruskal Wallis test showed significant results, however, when the two measures were considered independently, only the contrast of the year of 1990 to the prior three years was significant.
College & Research Libraries
The present study investigates citations to 750 randomly selected scholarly monographs in discipl... more The present study investigates citations to 750 randomly selected scholarly monographs in disciplines of religion, history, psychology, economics, mathematics, and physics. The objective of the study is to understand distributions of citations to scholarly monographs in various disciplines, to explore disciplinary difference in the citing of books, and to compare citations to monographs with previous results on citations to journal articles. The data revealed interesting citation patterns and aging effects that are in several aspects different from citation data based on the journal literature. While the distribution trend of monographic uncitedness is similar to that of journals across the disciplines, the noncitation ratios are much lower than what has been reported about journal citations. Half-life measures of scientific monographs are greater than those in the humanities and social sciences; this contradicts previous findings. Citation frequency and Price's Index vary from ...