• How many libraries hold the book in their collections? Check WorldCat to find how many libraries have a record for the book in their collections.
• Are there any book reviews?  To find book reviews, check bibliographic databases that index book reviews, Google Books, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, publisher websites, to name a few. Some reviews are available in video format.
• Are there any discussions about the book in the Amazon Customer Discussion forum?
• Is the book available in an e-reader format as well as print?
• Has the book been publicly recommended on Google+?
• Has the book been tweeted on Twitter?
• Is the book noted on a publisher’s best-seller list?
• What are the sales figures for the book?
• Has the book been included in bibliographies?
• Has the book or book chapter been cited in subsequent publications? Some bibliographic databases provide citation data to book or book chapters from scholarly literature. One example of a database is the Thomson Reuters Book Citation Index.
• Has the author been invited to present on the topic related to the book or book chapter?
• Has the author been invited to book signings?
• Are there subsequent editions to the book?

Any others?

Copyright and Open Access at the Bedside. John C. Newman and Robin Feldman. N Engl J Med 2011; 365:2447-2449. December 29, 2011.

“Citation analysis is not a substitute or shortcut for critical thinking; it is, instead, a point of departure for those willing to explore the avenues to thorough evaluation . . . citations tell us nothing about a researcher’s teaching ability, administrative talent, or other non-scholarly contributions. And they do not necessarily reflect the usefulness of research for curing disease, finding new drugs, and so on.”  [Source: Current Contents, (43): 3-9, October 28, 1985.]

Examples of “points of departure” for review of research impact:

Economic Impact Reporting Framework, Medical Research Council

Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) Initiative, Australian Research Council

Logic Model for Medical Research, Anthony Weiss

Mixed-Method Approach, Trochim, William M., et al.

Payback Framework, Health Economics Research Group (HERG)

Research Impact Framework, Kuruvilla, Shyama, et al.

Can Tweets Predict Citations? Metrics of Social Impact Based on Twitter and Correlation with Traditional Metrics of Scientific Impact. Gunther Eysenbach. J Med Internet Res 2011 (Dec 16); 13(4):e123.

“Tweets can predict highly cited articles within the first 3 days of article publication. Social media activity either increases citations or reflects the underlying qualities of the article that also predict citations, but the true use of these metrics is to measure the distinct concept of social impact. Social impact measures based on tweets are proposed to complement traditional citation metrics. The proposed twimpact factor may be a useful and timely metric to measure uptake of research findings and to filter research findings resonating with the public in real time.”

HTML (open access)

PDF (members only)

“We may not be able to demonstrate or to measure significant re-use of the outputs of the research that we fund now for many years. But what we can do is focus on optimizing the capacity and the potential for future exploitation. Where we can’t demonstrate re-use and impact we should demand that researchers demonstrate that they have optimized their outputs to enable future re-use and future impact. Where research doesn’t have near term applications we should apply a higher standard of curation and archival, and above all require researchers to ensure that their work remains discoverable over the next decades when its possible applications may surface.“

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: What Retractions Say About Scientific Transparency.

Estelle Brodman: How to Write a Paper

Dr. Estelle Brodman, former director of Bernard Becker Medical Library, presented this paper to the Department of Dermatology at Columbia University in 1947. Many of the points Dr. Brodman outlines in the presentation are still relevant today. For more information on Dr. Brodman, visit her oral history page.

The Consort Statement: CONSORT 2010

CONSORT 2010 is intended to improve the reporting of a randomized controlled trial (RCT), enabling readers to understand a trial’s design, conduct, analysis and interpretation, and to assess the validity of its results. It includes guidance in the form of a check-list for the Title, Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Other Information for a manuscript.

American Chemical Society: Publishing Your Research 101 Series

The Publishing Your Research 101 video series, produced by ACS Publications, is designed to assist authors and reviewers in understanding and improving their experience with the processes of writing, submitting, editing, and reviewing manuscripts.

International Committee of Medical Journal Editors: Preparing a Manuscript for Submission to a Biomedical Journal

ICMJE outlines general principles for preparing manuscripts for submission to a journal.

[Source: Mabile, Laurence, Dalgleish, Raymond, Thorisson, Gudmundur , Deschênes, Mylène, Hewitt, Robert, Carpenter, Jane, Bravo, Elena, Gourraud, Pierre-Antoine, Hofman, Paul, Harris, Jennifer, Munoz-Fernandes, Maria Angeles, and Cambon-Thomsen, Anne. The BRIF (Bioresource Research Impact Factor) as a tool for improving bioresource sharing in biomedical research. Available from Nature Precedings <http://hdl.handle.net/10101/npre.2011.6568.1> (2011)]

Read the article in Nature: The Athletes of Science by Maria Pavlou and Eleftherios P. Diamandis. Nature 478, 419 (2011). doi:10.1038/nj7369-419a.