Naukometriya, Nalimov and Mul’chenko

Abstract

In this article, we try to find out what Vasiliy Nalimov and Zinaida Mul’chenko exactly wrote in their famous book Naukometriya, the Study of the Development of Science as an Information Process (1969). Afterward, the term Naukometriya became known in the West as Scientometrics. It is often mentioned that Nalimov invented the term scientometrics, usually with reference to his book published in 1969. Shouldn’t Mul’chenko be mentioned as one of the inventors of this term? We show that referring to Naukometriya is a case of wrong reference, as Nalimov introduced the term already in 1966. We further place the term scientometrics in the context of the science of science and of Soviet science during that period.