The Rise and Fall of Uncitedness

Abstract

Large-scale uncitedness refers to the remarkable proportion of articles that do not receive a single citation within five years of publication. Equally remarkable is the brief and troubled history of this area of inquiry, which was prone to miscalculation, misinterpretation, and politicization. This article reassesses large-scale uncitedness as both a general phenomenon in the scholarly communication system and a case study of library and information science, where its rate is 72 percent.