DISSEMINATION AND NATIONAL AND INTERNACIONAL IMPACT FACTORS OF SPANISH JOURNALS

Abstract

The paper analyses Spanish scientific journals today. It contains data on the age of the journals, their format, periodicity, languages, dissemination, and national and international visibility. The objective of the paper is to carry out a bibliometric analysis of the Spanish journals currently published. Different directories, repertoires and literature databases have been consulted. The veracity of the data collected has been checked by visiting the websites of the journals and by contacting their publishers. The results point to uneven behaviours across journals in different scientific disciplines. The most relevant finding is the constant growth in the number of Spanish journals in both national and international databases. The total number of Spanish journals published at present is 3004. The highest number of journals published in Spain is found in the Social Science area (42%), followed by Humanities (25%) and Medical Sciences (19%). As to their periodicity, most journals are annual. The most commonly used language is Spanish. Despite the growing trend of both national and international databases to include more and more Spanish scientific journals, the number of Spanish journals included in the databases of the ISI Journal Citation Index (JCR of SCI and SSCI) remains low, with only 32 journals included in 2005 (1% approximately of the total journals currently published in Spain).