Since the 20th century, there has been an exponential growth of science and technology (S&T). The volume of information and the astounding number of publications have attracted the interest of researchers, educators, and policy-makers. Particularly, the dynamics of knowledge production and of the scientific enterprise have received special attention in studies related to the sociology of science, including scientometrics and informetrics. In the last decades, these areas have played a fundamental role in offering empirical data on the process of communicating and disseminating S&T knowledge, their main objects of study. Accordingly, scientometrics and informetrics are the foci of an increasing number of specialized journals. The International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics (ISSI), founded in 1993, with a steady growth in membership, has held biennial conferences in different countries. In 2009, the 12th International Conference of the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics (ISSI 2009) will be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Objective
The 1st Brazilian Meeting on Bibliometrics and Scientometrics (I EBBC) is here announced with the following purposes:
1. to be a meeting for interaction between researchers and research groups studying bibliometric and scientometric issues in Brazil; identify convergences between these studies and international state-of-the-art research in these areas.
2. to be a forum for discussion of research trends and of current gaps to be filled in for advancing knowledge and fostering research in these areas in Brazil.
3. to be a preparatory meeting for ISSI 2009 to be held in Rio de Janeiro.
We expect that the outcome of this meeting may encourage participants to establish a platform for cooperation to strengthen scientometrics and bibliometrics in Brazil. We also plan to present a proposal for the creation of the Brazilian Society for Bibliometrics and Scientometrics, a crucial step toward establishing an active scientific community in these areas.
Target Audience
The I EBBC is aimed at a multidisciplinary audience. It thus includes researchers, educators, librarians, policy-makers, and students from different fields, who are interested in or working on information science and related areas.
Official language
All talks, sessions and roundtables in the EBBC1 will be in Portuguese.