Heinzkill.indd


 
 
 

 
  

           
 

    
      

    
    

        
      

       
    

      
      
       

       
       

       
       

     
    

     
      

     
    

      

       
     

      
     
      

      
      

      
      
      

       
      
      

     
         

       
   

References in Scholarly English and 
American Literary Journals 
Thirty Years Later: A Citation Study 

Richard Heinzkill 

This study examines 20,802 citations in 555 journal articles devoted to 
criticism of English and American literature published in 2003. Books 
are cited far more often (75.8%) than journal articles (19.8%). Over half 
of the monographs cited (55.4%) are less than twenty years old. In gen-
eral, journal articles published within the past twenty years are the most 
frequently cited. Literary scholars use a diversity of monographs which 
fall outside of the core classifications for literature; over 40% are outside. 
This study is compared to other citation studies of English and American 
literature. It concludes with observations on the use of the Web, browsing 
by literary researchers, and English as an interdisciplinary field. 

itation studies have been 
around for a long time. The 
vast majority of citation stud-
ies analyze scientific literature 

and are o en only tangently of interest to 
librarians because these studies focus on 
issues such as questions of influence and 
interaction among scientists, the identifica-
tion of emerging scientific disciplines and 
subfields, the impact of specific journals, 
e-journals and open access journals, as well 
as the methodology of citation analysis. On 
the other hand, librarians more o en look 
to citation studies to inform them about 
the management of libraries in such areas 
as budgeting priorities, library services, 
library instruction, selecting materials 
for storage, and collection development. 
Although citation studies are not above 
criticism, the fact remains that “…limita-
tions notwithstanding citations represent 
an auditable trail of scholarship, and 

citation analysis remains a useful tool for 
evaluation of library collections and sub-
ject literature.”1 And, as always, citation 
studies present more reliable evidence 
beyond anecdotes and gut feelings about 
what is taking place in scholarship. 

There are not many citation studies 
done in the humanistic disciplines, and 
only a few concentrate on English litera-
ture. The principal citation studies of Eng-
lish literature are those by Budd, Heinzkill, 
and Stern.2 There are other humanities cita-
tion studies that include English literature 
scholars; however, literature is subsumed 
in the totals for the whole with no breakout 
figures to identify activity in the various 
disciplines including literature. 

But is it really necessary to do another 
study? The last citation study to deal ex-
clusively with the field was done awhile 
ago (Stern, 1983), and that study concen-
trated on only a few areas of English and 

Richard Heinzkill, retired Reference and Humanities Bibliographer, the University of Oregon; e-mail: 
heinzkil@uoregon.edu 

141 

mailto:heinzkil@uoregon.edu


 

   
       

       
      

     
     

      

      

     
     

         

     

 
     
    

     

     

     
      
     

    
     

   

   

    

   

    
      

   
     

    

 
    

    

    

     
      
      

   

     
     
    
      

     
    

     

     
    

142 College & Research Libraries March 2007 

American literature.3 The presumption 
is that things have changed in the past 
thirty years! It is not necessary at this 
point to go into detail about changes 
in libraries and the impact of electronic 
technology on scholars; they are fairly 
obvious. More important, there have been 
many changes in the discipline of English. 
It has seen the full flowering of not just 
one, but many theories. Questions of race, 
gender, and class are brought to bear on 
texts. And going even further, questions 
about which works are worthy of study, 
especially those by women and ethnic 
minorities, have been raised, which in 
turn challenges the preeminent position 
of the “classics” found in anthologies of 
thirty years ago. These are just a few of the 
topics that have engaged the profession 
recently in their scholarly journals. 

Methodology 
For this analysis, articles from 42 English 
and American journals devoted to the 
scholarship of English and American lit-
erature were examined.4 Care was taken 
to identify journals representing a variety 
of editorial viewpoints. Most articles 
surveyed were published in 2003. (Some 
2003 journal issues were not available 
at the time data was collected, so a few 
substitutions were made.5) 

From this group of scholarly journals, 
555 articles dealing with literary topics 
were examined. Articles on art, philoso-
phy, and history were excluded unless 
they referred to literary works. The ar-
ticles yielded 20,802 citations (12,595 from 
journal articles about English literature 
and 8,207 from journal articles about 
American literature). These citations are 
the basis of the study. 

Each article was as-
signed to a literary pe-
riod. The imprint date 
of monograph citations 
in the article were also 
assigned to a time pe-
riod, and the language 
of the monograph was 
identified. 

Using WorldCat, the subject matter 
as reflected in the Library of Congress 
classification number of monographs 
published since 1800 was ascertained. The 
classification number of monographs clas-
sifying outside of literature parts of the 
PN schedule (i.e., radio, film, television, 
journalism), PR (English literature) and 
PS (American literature) were considered 
“nonliterary” and their frequency was 
tabulated to determine the use of “non-
literary” subject ma er in contrast to the 
core literature numbers represented by 
PN 1–PN 1559, PR and PS. 

In addition to citations to monographs, 
other citations were assigned to a cat-
egory for journal articles or to “other” 
(for dissertations, newspaper articles, 
manuscripts, etc.). Journal articles were 
assigned to a literary period, date noted 
and the language of the article identified. 
Citations in the “other” category were 
identified as to type (e.g., dissertation, 
newspaper article, manuscript), and their 
percentage of the total number of citations 
was calculated. 

The number of citations to non-English 
monographs and journal articles was 
tabulated by language. 

Principal Findings 
Books constitute 75.8 percent of all cita-
tions, journal articles 19.8 percent, and 
other types of material 4.4 percent. Sepa-
rating the two literatures: books are 77.1 
percent, journal articles 19.9 percent, and 
other types of material 3.0 percent in the 
citations pertaining to English literature. 
For American literature, books are 73.8 
percent, journal articles 19.6 percent, 
and other types of material 6.6 percent. 

TABLE 1 
Summary of Results 
% Books % Journal 

Articles 
% Other 

English 77.1 (9,715) 19.9 (2,504) 3.0 (376) 
American 73.8 (6,058) 19.6 (1,609) 6.6 (540) 
Both literatures 75.8 (15,773) 19.8 (4,113) 4.4 (916) 



    

     

      
        

       
       

       
       

         
      

       
       

         
     

     

      

      

    
 

    
    

     
    

   

     

  

  

   

     

  

   

  

      
       

       
      

       
       

       
     
     

      
 

       
       

       
     

        
      

       
    

          
       

       
      

    
       

         
   

References in Scholarly English and American Literary Journals 143 

(See table 1.) The two most notable dif-
ferences between the literatures are that 
books were used slightly more in English 
literature than in American literature; 
and in American literature, the “other” 
category has a higher percentage because 
more newspaper articles were used. 

Age of Cited Books 
Throughout the study the publication date 
given in the citation was used. O en with 
monographs the imprint date was not the 
original date of publication, but a newer 
edition of an older work. This accounts 
for the use of newer imprints appearing 
to be higher than it might be thought for 
some periods. Especially in the older liter-
ary periods, citing recent editions of older 
works makes it appear that older works 
are not used as o en, when in reality they 
are but in newer editions. 

In English literary scholarship over half 
(51.4%) of the books cited had imprints 
dated within the previous twenty years. 
(See table 2.) Scholarship since WWII is 
strongly valued inasmuch as 82 percent of 
the imprints fall within that time span. 

Imprints of the past twenty years used 
for the study of American literary schol-
arship show a similar pa ern, but with 
imprints from the past twenty years being 
more frequent than those of English lit-
erature of the same period—61.8 percent 
for American compared to 51.4 percent 
for English. And the percentage of works 
cited post-WWII is also higher—89.4 
percent for American compared to 82.1 
percent for English. (See table 3.) 

Characteristics of “Other” Category 
The number of citations falling into the 
“other ” category is very small—376 
citations for English literature (3.0% 
of the English literature citations) al-
though somewhat more prominent for 
American literature, 540 citations (6.6% 
of the American literature citations). The 
breakdown in actual numbers for “other” 
is as follows: 

• citations to newspapers—English 
(54), American (270); 

• citations to dissertations—English 
(38), American (26); 

• citations to manuscripts—English 
(168), American (116); 

• citations to Web sites—English 
(39 sites, including 8 proprietary ones), 
American (39 sites, including 3 propri-
etary ones); 

• citations to papers/talks—English 
(17), American (12); 

• other citations—English (60) — 
among which were 15 to unique copies 
of books usually because of handwri en 
marginalia, 14 to private correspondence 
received by author; 

• other citations—American (77) 
—among which were 20 to conversations 
or interviews, 15 to audio recordings and 
11 to films. 

Literary Subjects within Library of 
Congress Classification 
In English literature, the citations for 
imprints since 1800 are: 53.8 percent in 
PR (English literature), 1.3 percent in PS 
(American literature), and 3.4 percent in 
PN (literary sections only: i.e., PN 1–PN 
1559) combined to make 58.5 percent of 
the book citations falling within the core 
literature sections of the classification 
schedule. For American literature, the 
citations are 42.2 percent in PS (Ameri-
can literature), 4.9 percent in PR (English 
literature), and 3.6 percent in PN (literary 
sections only: i.e., PN 1–PN 1559) to com-
prise 60.7 percent within the core literature 
sections of the classification schedule. 

Subjects Outside of Literature 
One of the unique findings of this study 
is the assignment of L.C. classification 
numbers for book citations outside of the 
principal literature classifications. The clos-
est known a empt to do this is a study by 
Broadus in which the information needs of 
a broadly defined group of humanists and 
a subgroup of “special humanists” were 
analyzed.6 Although not exactly compara-
ble, this study agrees with his observation: 
“The main point to be noted is the wide 
variety of subjects represented.”7 



 

 

144 College & Research Libraries March 2007 

TA
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References in Scholarly English and American Literary Journals 145 

TA
B
L
E
 3

C
it
at
io
ns
 to
 a
ll 
M
on
og
ra
ph
s 
in
 A
rt
ic
le
s 
ab
ou
t A
m
er
ic
an
 L
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ce
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m
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 / 
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(1
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 a
 th
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re
tic
al
 a
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ac
h 
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 s
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 p
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ds
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rt
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le
s 
ab
ou
t t
he
or
y 
or
 li
te
r-

om
 a
 s
in
gl
e 
lit
er
ar
y 
pe
ri
od
 a
re
 in
 th
e 
ap
pr
op
ri
at
e 
pe
ri
od
. 

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se
d 
fo
r a
rt
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le
s 
di
sc
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ng

ar
y 
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st
or
y 
us
in
g 
ex
am
pl
es
 fr

Exactly how wide the subject 
range is becomes apparent in table 
4 where monographs published 
since 1800 and classifying outside 
of PN literary sections (i.e., in the 
radio, film, television and jour-
nalism sections), outside of PR 
(English literature) and outside of 
PS (American literature) are identi-
fied by broad su bject numbers.8 In 
addition to the expected interest in 
philosophy, religion, history, and 
sexuality, the subjects consulted 
run the gamut from A to Z in the Li-
brary of Congress subject scheme. 
More significant is the large portion 
of these “nonliterary” citations— 
other subject monographs consti-
tuted 41.5 percent (3,825 titles) of 
the total of the monographs cited 
from English literature articles 
and 49.3 percent (2,963 titles) from 
American literature articles were 
outside of the literature core. 

No claim is made that citations 
tabulated in table 4 are all unique. 
For instance, the percentages in-
clude multiple citations to the 
works of Pierre Bourdieu, Judith 
Butler, Jacques Derrida, Michel 
Foucault, and Fredric Jameson. 
Considering the emphasis on the-
ory their works do not show up 
with as much regularity as was 
expected. It is estimated multiple 
citations to these authors do not 
significantly skew the figures. It 
was further observed during the 
course of doing this study there 
were not any works that could be 
considered to be heavily cited. This 
observation corresponds with an-
other literary citation study, which 
states: “Few titles are cited with any 
frequency.”9 

Characteristics of Citations to 
Journal Articles 
Summary table 3 indicates journal 
articles account for 21.5 percent of 
the citations. 



 

  

146 College & Research Libraries March 2007 

TABLE 4 
Monographs (Published 1800–2002) Outside of Literature Classifications 
L.C. Classification % Appeared 

in Articles 
about 
English 
Literature 

% Appeared 
in Articles 
about 
American 
Literature 

A — some collected works, encyclopedias, museums 0.5 0.3 
B — philosophy 5.5 3.5 
BF — psychology 3.8 3.9 

BH — aesthetics 0.8 0.5 
BL–BQ — non-Christian religions 1.0 1.1 
BR–BS — Christianity, Bible 5.8 1.1 
BT–BV — theology 5.8 2.6 
Other B classifications in philosophy 1.4 4.8 
C — history of civilization, diplomatics, general 
biography 

1.3 1.0 

DA — history of British Isles 12.4 0.7 
Other D classifications — European history 4.6 2.9 
E — American history, including experience of ethnic 
groups in USA 

1.2 23.5 

F — regional US history, history of Northern and 
Southern hemispheres 

0.7 7.8 

GN — anthropology 0.8 1.9 
Other G classifications in geography, folklore 1.5 1.5
 H–HA — general social studies, statistics 0.3 0.1 
HB — economic theory 0.9 0.5 
HC–HD — economic history, economic conditions 1.5 2.1 
HE–HG — commerce and finance 0.4 0.7 
HM — sociology 1.0 1.7 
HN — social history, social problems, social reform 1.1 0.5 
HQ — family, marriage, women, sexuality 5.3 6.0 
HS–HT — societies, social classes, slavery 0.8 0.9 
HV — public welfare, criminology 1.4 1.3 
HX — socialism, communism 0.7 1.8 
JC — political theory 2.0 1.2 
JK — U.S. political institutions — 0.6 
JN — constitutional history 1.0 <0.1 
JV — colonization 0.5 0.1 
Other J classifications in political science 0.7 0.5 
K — law 1.7 1.6 



    
       

     
    

      

       

     

      
    

    
     

      

     

  

References in Scholarly English and American Literary Journals 147 

TABLE 4 
Monographs (Published 1800–2002) Outside of Literature Classifications 
L.C. Classification % Appeared 

in Articles 
about 
English 
Literature 

% Appeared 
in Articles 
about 
American 
Literature 

L — education 1.2 1.1 
M — music, musicology 0.3 3.0 
N – NC — art general, architecture, sculpture 1.0 1.0 
ND–NK — painting, printmaking, decorative arts 1.3 0.3 
NX — special arts topics 0.9 1.4 
P — linguistics 2.4 1.1 
PA — Greek and Latin literature 3.9 0.5 
PB–PD — Celtic, Germanic linguistics 0.8 0.1 
PE — English linguistics 4.3 2.3 
PG–PM — Slavic, Native American literatures 0.1 0.6 
PN — only theater, film, television, journalism 5.6 5.0 
PQ — French literature 2.8 1.6 
PQ — Spanish literature 0.8 2.0 
PQ — Italian literature 0.2 0.5 
PT — German literature 0.4 0.5 
Q–QP — science 1.7 1.5 
RC — psychiatry 1.5 1.3 
Other R classifications in medicine 1.0 0.7 
S — science 0.1 0.3 
T — technology 1.5 0.8 
U–V — military 0.2 <0.1 
Z — book history, industry 1.1 0.6 
Z — libraries, manuscript catalogs 2.5 0.5 

In general, articles published within 
the past twenty years are the most fre-
quently cited. 

In English literature, the work on 
modern literature (i.e., belles-le res since 
1919) relies most heavily on journals pub-
lished in the last ten years—53.0 percent 
of journal citations for the literary period 
1919–1945 were to articles published in 
the last ten years, and for the literary 
period 1946–2002, 49.9 percent of articles 
published were published in the last ten 

years. If another ten years are added (i.e., 
journals published in the last twenty 
years), every literary period except Early 
English and to a lesser degree Middle 
English and Transition favored articles 
published 1983–2002.10 

In American literature, the journal 
articles published during the past ten 
years accounted for 40.2 percent of the 
journal articles cited in scholarship about 
the 1919–1945 period; 50.2 percent of the 
articles for the period 1946–2002; and 

http:1983�2002.10


 

      
   

     

    

    
    

    

     

     
     

     

   
   

    

   

   
    

   

    
    
  
    

    
   

    
   

      
      

       
     

     

     
     

  
     

      

      

     

   

     

       

   

 

148 College & Research Libraries March 2007 

TABLE 5 
Comparison of Citation Studies 

% 
Books 

% 
Articles 

% 
Other 

Budd (1986) 
(American literature) 

64.0 23.0 12.9 

Gleaves (1960) 
(American literature) 

49.9 24.7 25.4 

Heinzkill (1980) 
(English literature) 

74.9 19.9  5.2 

Heinzkill (this study) 
(English literature) 

77.1 19.9  3.0 

Heinzkill (this study) 
(American literature) 

73.8 19.6  6.6 

Stern (1983) 
(3 English and 
American authors) 

82.7 15.1  2.2 

Stern (1983) 
(3 literary movements) 

78.8 16.5  4.6 

54.9 percent for literary theory and his-
tory category. But the past ten years are 
not as important for the other literary 
periods—Colonial, 22.1 percent published 
during the past ten years; pre-Civil War, 
28.1 percent, and 1861–1918, 31.3 percent. 
If this time span is enlarged to the past 
twenty years, every American literary 
period (except the pre-Civil war period) 
shows that at least 50 percent of the ar-
ticles cited were published between 1983 
and 2002.11 

Appearance of Non-English Material 
Although obviously important to re-
searchers who used non-English mate-
rial, these materials are not a significant 
factor in the scholarship—witness the 
low number of citations to non-English 
monographs: in the English literature sec-
tion (266 citations) and in the American 
literature section (46 citations). 

In English literature the four non-Eng-
lish languages most frequently cited were 
French (100 citations), Latin (75 citations), 
German (43 citations), and Italian (26 ci-
tations). Even though no other language 
garnered more than five citations, a 

variety of languages were repre-
sented (Chinese, Danish, Dutch, 
Icelandic, Old Norse, Polish, 
Slovak, and Spanish being among 
them). Journal articles yielded 61 
non-English citations. (A single 
article, a reception study on Dick-
ens in Italy, accounted for half of 
these citations.) Other languages 
represented among citations to 
journal articles were: French (13 
citations), German (11 citations) 
and Spanish (1 citation). 

The articles on American lit-
erature used even fewer non-
English monograph sources—29 
French, 11 Spanish, 5 German, 
and 1 Italian for a total of 46 cita-
tions. Journal articles were almost 
completely reliant on English 
language material as there were 
only 7 non-English citations—6 
in French, 1 in German. 

Comparison with Other Studies 
The title of this study includes the phrase 
“thirty years later,” which refers to the 
use of articles published in 2003 (with 
a few exceptions). This is roughly thirty 
years a er the sources for my 1980 article, 
which used articles published 1972–1974.12 
Unlike the 1980 article, which looked at 
only British literature, the present study 
includes American literature.13 

Table 5 compares book and journal 
citations of several other studies. When 
comparing the studies, one should be 
aware they were done using different 
methodologies, including different 
sources. Nevertheless, they do show that, 
no ma er what the methodology, over the 
years literary scholars have relied more 
heavily on books than journal articles and 
continue to do so. 

The comparison with results of the 
citations to English literature in the 1980 
article—the proportion of books/ar-
ticles/other is not all that different from 
1980—books (77.1% to 74.9% in 1980); 
articles are exactly the same (19.9% and 
19.9% in 1980); and the “other” category is 

http:literature.13
http:1972�1974.12


       

       
        

     
      

        
        

     
     

        
     

      
        

       
       

      
      

         
       

       
 

        

    

     

    
     

      
      

     

      
      

      

 
      

     

      
    

     

   

    
     

     
   

 
    

    
     

       

     
      

     
     

        
 

    
    

References in Scholarly English and American Literary Journals 149 

down (3.0% to 5.2% in 1980). The number 
of citations used in the present study is 
higher (20,802 to 9,556 in 1980) and comes 
from a wider range of journals than the 15 
journals the 1980 study examined. 

The citing of monographs published 
during the most recent ten-year period 
of each study is almost exactly the same. 
In the 1980 article, 25.89 percent of the 
monographs were published within ten 
years immediately preceding the study; 
in the present study, 26.9 percent of the 
monographs were published within the 
ten years preceding the study. However, 
the dates of the journal literature show an 
increase in the use of recently published 
journal articles. In 1980, the journal articles 
published for the most recent ten-year pe-
riod preceding the study constituted 38.56 
percent of all of the journal articles; in this 
study, the ten years preceding the study 
were 47.0 percent of all journal articles. 

The most dramatic difference between 
the 1980 study and this study is in the 
use of non-English material. The articles 
in this study used over 60 percent more 
book citations than in 1980, yet the actual 
number of non-English citations dropped 
from 795 in 1980 to 376. And the drop in 
non-English articles was even more pre-
cipitous: 106 in 1980 to 61. 

The age of materials is harder to com-
pare because the various studies gathered 
data in different time increments. Budd’s 
study of American literature done with 
1981 sources offers some comparable 
figures.14 In his study, the percentage 
of books with imprints for the previous 
decade is 29.4 percent, which is almost 
identical to this study (29.1%). If the 
time frame in Budd’s study is extended 
to imprints for the twenty-year period 
preceding his study, he found 53 percent 
compared to this study’s 57.4 percent. For 
older material, the difference is greater. In 
Budd’s study, 29.2 percent of titles were 
50 years or older. The present study finds 
only 10.6 percent of the titles older than 
55 years. 

The only other study that compares the 
age of material in English literary studies 

is the one by Stern (1981).15 Most of her 
data is not directly comparable. She states 
that for the selected literary movements 
she found 30 percent of “published refer-
ences are ten years old or less,” and, for 
the three British and American authors 
she followed, 21.6 percent of “published 
references are ten years old or less.” This 
would indicate that the majority of items 
used are older than ten years, which 
corresponds with the findings here.16 
However, Broadus’ look at “those scholars 
working more strictly in the humanities” 
finds a higher percentage of requests for 
titles less than 18 years old (63.9%), and 
81.2 percent of the titles were published 
within the previous 34 years.17 

Broadus, observing the interlibrary 
loan pa erns of humanists at a research 
center, divided requests from “those 
scholars working more strictly in the 
humanities” into broad subject areas (i.e., 
general, history, humanities, sciences, 
and social sciences); 43.4 percent of the 
requests were for items outside of what 
he defines as the humanities.18 He does 
give percentages for various groupings 
of Library of Congress classification 
numbers, but the groupings vary from 
those in table 4.19 

This study is in line with other ob-
servations that humanists and scientists 
use distinctly different types of library 
resources. The ratio of use between books 
and journals in the sciences is almost the 
reverse of that found in the humanities. 
“The bulk of scientific literature which 
is published throughout the world ap-
pears in serials … [In 1956] in eight major 
scientific subject fields the percentage of 
citations to serials in relation to the total 
number of citations to books and all seri-
als was in the order of 85.2 percent.”20 Sev-
eral years later Rosalind Walco  “states 
that the cited geoscience literature is pre-
dominantly serial in form, (serials were 
75–86% of citations, monographs were 
approximately 12–22% of citations).”21 
She also found the range of percentages 
of serials in the research literature of the 
biological sciences is from 80 percent to 

http:humanities.18
http:years.17
http:1981).15
http:figures.14


 

     
     

      
 

     

     

 

     

    

       

    
     

    

     

 
       

        
    

       

       
     

     
       

    

       
      
      
    

     

     

      
     
     
    

      
       

      

      

    
      

       
       

     

       

      

     
    

      
     

     

      

     

150 College & Research Libraries March 2007 

93 percent.22 Claudia Lascar and Loren 
Mendelsohn give a figure that ranks 
serials even higher—95.1 percent of the 
citations in the literature of structural biol-
ogy are to journals.23 They further state: 
“This high proportion is consistent with 
established theory that the majority of 
scholarly communication in the scientific 
community takes place in the journals,” 
which is practically the opposite situation 
in the humanities where books are more 
highly valued than journal articles.24 

Use of the Web and Electronic 
Resources 
As Palmer and Neumann found in 
1995–1997, humanists are not adverse to 
using electronic technology for personal 
communication, to manage their research, 
to scan documents, and to write, but as 
of that time period “the digital is sec-
ondary to the physical in the actual use 
of information sources, suggesting that 
full-text materials are not yet aligned 
with scholarly work practices.”25 This 
study agrees with this conclusion—with 
a few caveats, however. First of all, some 
studies group historians in with literary 
scholars. One would expect historians to 
be interested in more primary documents, 
which are being digitized at a rapid clip. 
Even though there are almost no cites to 
digitized literary texts, it is probable they 
are used in the research process by litera-
ture scholars but not cited.26 One reason 
may be that most literary e-texts that tend 
to be older, out of copyright texts, have an 
electronic “find” capability that locates 
keywords instantaneously within a text. 
Once the location of a passage is known 
in the electronic version, it can then easily 
be located in a printed newer scholarly 
edition. The passage is then cited from the 
paper edition, which citation carries with 
it more cachet than a citation to an elec-
tronic version. This scenario may account 
for the almost complete lack of citations to 
primary texts in electronic format among 
the articles surveyed in this study. 

Humanistic scholars may not be 
strangers to the Web, but there was li le 

evidence (at least as of 2003) of much 
activity on the Web in their published 
articles. There were a few referrals to 
e-mails (included in “other ”). There 
were fewer than two dozen references 
to e-journals—the most frequently cited 
being Postmodern Culture. Only a couple 
of articles were acknowledged to have 
been accessed electronically. There may 
be more access to electronic journals than 
the statistics would indicate, especially to 
the journals offered through Project Muse 
and JSTOR. These electronic databases 
display the text with page numbers as 
they appear in the printed copy, so a 
citation need not indicate the electronic 
version was read, and the articles can 
be cited as if they had been read in the 
paper version. 

As the discussion above of “other” ma-
terial states, there were eleven mentions 
of proprietary databases (i.e., databases 
that require an institutional subscrip-
tion). Several citations were to LION (LIt-
eratureONline from Chadwyck-Healey). 
Citations to other kinds of Web sites were 
very infrequent, a total of 67 references in 
both the English and American literature 
sections to free (i.e., nonproprietary) Web 
sites. One can theorize on the reasons for 
this: there is li le on free Web sites that 
is worth citing, or perhaps free Web sites 
are perceived to be so unstable that it is a 
disservice to cite them lest readers in years 
hence search for the site in vain. 

Use of Browsing 
It is well known that browsing is an im-
portant part of the research process for 
humanist scholars. One way to get started 
browsing is to use catalog and database 
search results as the jumping-,off point 
to identify shelves where promising-
sounding titles are to ascertain if items 
are indeed relevant and worth further 
attention.27 Even after having read an 
item, a scholar may decide not to incor-
porate it into the discussion, in which 
case a read item would not merit a foot-
note. Although unaware of any research 
confirming the ratio of items consulted 

http:attention.27
http:cited.26
http:articles.24
http:journals.23
http:percent.22


     

       

     
  

     
     

 

     

      

     
     

      

       

    
     
    

      

    

  
      
       

      

       
      

    

      

     
     

    
     

    

   
        

      

       

 

      

    
      

     
    

     

References in Scholarly English and American Literary Journals 151 

to items cited, I suggest that for every 
footnote there are 3–5 items that have 
been perused but are not cited for vari-
ous reasons (e.g., looked promising, but 
turns out not to be relevant, contribution 
to the final scholarly article is too slight 
to merit a footnote). If this is the case, the 
number of monographs consulted will 
be much higher than the figures in this 
study, which means there is more activity 
at shelves outside the literature sections 
than one might suspect.28 

English Literature—An 
Interdisciplinary Study? 
The percentages in table 4 (monographs 
outside of literature) are small for most 
call number ranges, but accumulate to 
represent a substantial amount of cita-
tions outside of literary—41.5 percent 
for English literature and 49.3 percent 
for American literature. How did schol-
ars discover the titles that fall outside of 
their primary field of study—through a 
library catalog, interaction with librar-
ians, databases furnished by the library, 
browsing at the shelf, footnote chasing, 
conversations with colleagues? These 
are a few of the avenues that come to 
mind. But a scholar in terra incognito 
experiences these avenues in a different 
way than when researching in his or her 
home territory. One study by Palmer and 
Neumann touches on this. They set out to 
investigate among other things “How do 
researchers find out and use information 
from areas outside their core domain?”29 
Because theirs is an ethnographic study 
following the work habits of those do-
ing scholarship, their answers are more 
general than specific. Use of the library, 
databases, special collections, and so on 
are identified, but techniques scholars 
used to mine these resources are not 
spelled out. Their subjects are faculty 
from many academic departments within 
the humanities who were selected for 
the interdisciplinary focus of their work; 
thus, the findings pertain to scholarship 
done in an interdisciplinary mode. This 
interdisciplinary sense is somewhat dif-

ferent from an English literary scholar 
using findings from other disciplines to 
flesh out background in a literary paper, 
to discuss a philosophical point, or to put 
a piece of literature into a broader context. 
Using works outside literary fields does 
not necessarily make a literary study 
interdisciplinary especially interdisciplin-
ary as defined by Giles Gunn—“To bring 
two or more disciplines into significant 
interaction with one another …” [italics 
mine].30 Whatever the interest above and 
beyond the strictly literary is called, it is 
an important aspect of information seek-
ing by literature researchers and needs 
further investigation.31 

Implications for Literature Selectors 
Developing a strong literature collection 
is only one aspect of the work of the lit-
erature selectors. They have to become in-
formed about the directions the interests 
of their faculty and students are taking. 
As this study shows, their interests lie in 
many different areas outside the literary 
classifications (PN, PR, and PS)—over 40 
percent of the citations to monographs 
published since 1800 are to material 
outside of the literature sections of the 
library. (And this may be a conservative 
figure because, as is well known, all items 
consulted are not cited.) Additional em-
phasis on the importance of this comes 
from Palmer and Neumann: “Information 
that is gathered from outside domains 
o en requires additional resources before 
it can be understood and used.”32 Because 
resources consulted in today’s literature 
studies run the full spectrum of the L.C. 
classification schedule, there are also 
implications for library instruction. It is 
important for literary scholars, in addi-
tion to being acquainted specifically with 
the literature resources, to be able to find 
their way around the other resources the 
library has to offer. 

Conclusion 
Despite changes in libraries, in the pro-
fession, and in the way scholarship is 
being done in a computerized world, 

http:investigation.31
http:mine].30
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152 College & Research Libraries March 2007 

when this study is compared to previous 
citation studies there is li le evidence 
that the mix of library resources being 
used for English literary scholarship has 
changed dramatically. Books, especially 
those published since WWII, continue 
to be the favored resource. This long 
period of usefulness should be an incen-
tive to continually assess the collection 
for lacunae and then engage in some 
retrospective book selection. With half of 
the journal citations to articles published 
since 1946, continued access to older 
journals is important whether they are 
on the shelf or provided electronically. 
Although non-English resources were 
never a significant part of English literary 
scholarship, their use has declined even 
further. One unique finding is that over 
forty percent of the citations were outside 
of the literature range in the Library of 

Congress number scheme. The range of 
“nonliterary” titles extends beyond the 
books in religion, philosophy, and history 
sections to practically every call number 
area. The high use of “nonliterary” mate-
rial calls for the literature selector to be 
aware of the scholarly interests of faculty 
and students they work with in order to 
monitor the adequacy (and if necessary 
select) in “nonliterary” subject areas. 
Furthermore, in addition to instruction 
aimed specifically at locating and using 
literature resources, students need famil-
iarity with general principles of searching 
library catalogs and databases in a variety 
of disciplines. And finally, although this 
citation study is only one indicator in the 
information-seeking behavior of a group 
of humanistic scholars, it contributes to a 
be er understanding of library usage by 
a group that are heavy library users. 

Notes 

1. John Laurence Kelland and Arthur P. Young, “Citation Pa erns and Library Use,” in En-
cyclopedia of Library and Information Science, ed. Allen Kent (New York: Marcel Dekker, 1998), vol. 
61, 62. 

2. John Budd, “Characteristics of Wri en Scholarship in American Literature: A Citation 
Study,” Library and Information Science Research 8 (1986): 189–211; Richard Heinzkill, “Character-
istics of References in Selected Scholarly English Literary Journals,” Library Quarterly 50 (1980): 
352–65; Madeleine Stern, “Characteristics of the Literature of Literary Scholarship,” College & 
Research Libraries 44 (1983): 199–209. 

3. See note 2 above. 
4. Sources are relevant articles published for the volume year 2003 (unless otherwise noted). 

Journal titles and number of articles analyzed are: African American Review (35), American Liter-
ary History (32), American Literary Realism (14), American Literature (23) Callaloo (19 in vol. 25, no. 
4, [2002]; vol. 26, no. 1, 2, 3), Contemporary Literature (15), Early American Literature (14), English 
Literature in Transition (12), Essays in Criticism (13), Exemplaria (9), Isle (8), Journal of English and 
Germanic Philology (10), Legacy (9), Modern Fiction Studies (25), Modern Language Quarterly (11), 
Modern Language Review (9), Neophilologus (9), New England Quarterly (7), Papers on Language and 
Literature (18), PMLA (15), Representations (11), Review of English Studies (22 in vol. 52 [2001]), 
Shakespeare Quarterly (11), Southern Literary Journal (16), Speculum (5), Studies in American Fiction 
(10), Studies in English Literature (36), Studies in Romanticism (15), Texas Studies in Literature and 
Language (16), Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature (10), Yale Journal of Criticism (7), and randomly 
selected articles from: CLA Journal (4), Eighteenth Century Fiction (5), ELH (31), English Language 
Notes (8), English Literary Renaissance (6), Medium Aevum (6), Neuphilologische Mi eilungen (3), 
Studies in Philology (7), Twentieth Century Literature (8), Victorian Literature and Culture (7), Victorian 
Studies (4). 

5. See note 4 above.  
6. Robert N. Broadus, “Information Needs of Humanities Scholars: A Study of Requests Made 

at the National Humanities Center,” Library and Information Science Research 9 (1987): 113–29. His 
grouping of L.C. classification categories is different from the grouping done for this study. He 
also includes older titles, which this study does not. 

7. Ibid., 117. 
8. The year 1800 is used as the cutoff based on the presumption that volumes from earlier 

centuries are in rare book collections where it is not usually possible for the scholar to browse 



              

            

 

          

               

 

 
 

 
 

 

            
 

   
 

             

 
             

 
              

 

References in Scholarly English and American Literary Journals 153 

the shelf; thus, the figures here reflect activity at shelves throughout the library. This is important 
inasmuch as browsing is of prime importance to humanists, especially when they leave their core 
subject area; see Carole L. Palmer and Laura J. Neumann, “The Information Work of Interdisci-
plinary Humanities Scholars: Exploration and Translation,” Library Quarterly 72 (2002): 102. 

9. John Budd, “A Citation Study of American Literature: Implications for Collection Manage-
ment,” Collection Management 8, no. 2 (1986): 56. 

10. To be exact, the percentages for the twenty-year period are: for Early English, 38.6% of the 
total number of journal citations for this period fall within this span; for Middle English, 47.5%; 
for Renaissance, 62.7%; for Restoration, 63.8%; for Augustan-Jacobean, 64.6%; for Romantic, 
61.7%; for Victorian, 53.0%; for Transition, 48.8%; for 1919–1945, 75.6%; for 1946–2002, 72.0%; for 
literary theory and history, 75.8%. 

11. Colonial, 51.6% of the journal citations were to journal articles published in the most recent 
twenty years; pre-Civil War, 47.3%; 1861–1918, 52.9%; 1919–1945, 59.8%; 1946–2002, 72.1%; and 
theory, 81.9% . 

12. Heinzkill, “Characteristics of References,” 353. 
13. In truth, it has not been thirty years since a citation study has been done of American lit-

erature. Because my article (1980) did not cover American literature, other studies of American 
literature are used for comparison in this article. 

14. Budd, “Characteristics of Wri en Scholarship,” 200. 
15. Stern, “Characteristics of the Literature,” 203. 
16. Ibid, 207. 
17. Broadus, “Information Needs,” 120. 
18. Ibid., 125. 
19. Anyone wishing to pursue a comparison of percentages in Library of Congress numbers 

as given by Broadus and the one in table 5 should be aware that, because Broadus includes the 
classification numbers for literature (i.e., PN, PR, and PS), his percentages would have to be re-
calculated to be anywhere near being comparable to those in table 5. If the literary numbers are 
removed from his table, the percentages he gives on page 122 will show an increase. 

20. Joseph C. Shipman, “General Science,” Library Trends 15, no. 4 (1967): 80. 
21. Rosalind Walco , “Characteristics of Citations in Geoscience Doctoral Dissertations Ac-

cepted at United States Academic Institutions 1981–1985,” Science and Technology Libraries 12, no. 
2 (1991): 6. 

22. Rosalind Walco , “Characteristics of Citations in 1993 Volumes of Auk, Condor, Ibis and 
Wilson Bulletin,” Science and Technology Libraries 15, no. 4 (1996): 31. 

23. Claudia Lascar and Lorn Mendelsohn, “An Analysis of Journal Use by Structural Biologists 
with Applications for Journal Collection Development Decisions,” College & Research Libraries 62 
(2001): 426. 

24. Ibid., 426–27. 
25. Palmer and Neumann, “Information Work,” 110. 
26. A reviewer in TLS has expressed the same thought: “The contributors to Anniversary es-

says on Johnson’s ‘Dictionary’ seldom cite electronic sources; all the same I bet they are using them 
regularly.” H. J. Jackson, “Big and Li le Ma ers,” TLS 5354 (Nov. 11, 2005): 4. 

27. One of the more recent reaffirmations of the importance of browsing is: “Humanists 
continue to follow familiar pa erns … browsing is widely practiced.” Palmer and Neumann, 
“Information Work,” 89. 

28. “Their scanning mode of reading pushes the boundaries as they regularly browse leads 
in areas outside their expertise.” Palmer and Neumann, “Information Work,” 102, and Broadus, 
“Information Needs,” 124. The percentage that Broadus came up with for titles outside of the 
humanities is 43.4%. However, these are items requested to be read by his group of humanists 
at a research center and are, therefore, not necessarily cited in their final published products. 

29. Palmer and Neumann, “Information Work,” 86. 
30. Giles Gunn, “Interdisciplinary Studies,” in Introduction to Scholarship in Modern Languages 

and Literatures, ed. Joseph Gibaldi, 2nd ed. (New York: Modern Language Association of America, 
1992): 239–61. 

31. Palmer and Neumann detail the efforts of the Modern Language Association through the 
sponsorship of various monographs that show the relation of literary studies to other fields. These 
monographs o en use the term “interdisciplinary” to show the interest of literary scholars in 
other areas; however, lately, “interdisciplinary” is undergoing redefinition by Gunn and others. 
Palmer and Neumann, “Information Work,” 89. 

32. Palmer and Neumann, “Information Work,” 102. 



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