Under a cloak of invisibility: Use of books and book chapters published by the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales since 1970

Abstract

Between 1970 and 2013, the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales (RZS NSW) published 30 books, contributing to many relevant or controversial zoological topics as well as documenting the society’s history and offering perspectives on the development of Australian zoology. Authors from eight countries contributed to books or chapters. Over 97% of authors indicated Australian affiliations in addresses. Approximately 67% of papers citing RZS NSW books or book chapters had at least one author with an Australian affiliation. Ten or more authors with affiliations from each of 22 other countries were also included, indicating that the books have an international profile. This conclusion is supported by an examination of global library holdings in WorldCat; all RZS NSW books are held in libraries with the range between 17 and 152 libraries per book. The range of countries holding each book is 4 to 14. The library holdings are an important reminder that citations are not the sole indicator of use of scientific publications, with the books remaining on library shelves because students and others consult them. Although the books and their chapters were often not listed in either Scopus or Web of Science (Core Collection) or Web of Science (all databases), citations to them could still be retrieved using either a secondary documents search (Scopus) or cited reference search (versions of Web of Science). Chapters from twenty-six books were cited in Scopus in 2020 or 2021, indicating that the books have long citation lives. A list of the 20 most highly cited books or chapters included seven chapters from the two editions of Conservation of Australia’s Forest Fauna, indicating a strong interest in this subject. Eight of the books or chapters on the list covered mammals and a further three covered vertebrates generally, so mammals also engendered strong interest. Benchmarking against similar books from another publisher, CSIRO Publishing, found similar problems of a low profile in Scopus and Web of Science (Core Collection) and Web of Science (all databases), but evidence of extensive library holdings.