Data-mining: Improvement of university library services

Delft University Press has been contacted by the International Water History Association (client) in order to study the relevancy of starting a new journal on a particular topic of interest to its members. This periodical would publish most of the articles relating to this field. Before starting, the client and the publisher want to know if such a journal would find enough authors for the articles and a sufficient audience. How many potential authors exist? What amount of articles in that field exists in other journals? In order to get an answer, the Delft University of Technology Library performed basic bibliometric analyses.A study of all articles published in 6 relevant existing periodicals, selected by the client, shows that most of the authors were unknown to the client. An analysis of the publications of the members of the association revealed that only one-third has published in the past 10 years, and very few publications were in the client's field of interest. This would imply that a future periodical could not be supported only by contributions of the members. These preliminary analyses allowed the publisher and the client to get a clearer idea of the possible contribution of its members for a future periodical. The main contributors will have to be recruited from a larger population.