How far does scientific community look back?

Abstract

How does the published scientific literature used by scientific community? Many previous studies make analysis on the static usage data. In this research, we propose the concept of dynamic usage data. Based on the platform of realtime.springer.com, we have been monitoring and recording the dynamic usage data of Scientometrics articles round the clock. Our analysis find that papers published in recent four years have many more downloads than papers published four years ago. According to our quantitative calculation, papers downloaded on one day have an average lifetime of 4.1 years approximately. Classic papers are still being downloaded frequently even long after their publication. Additionally, we find that social media may reboot the attention of old scientific literature in a short time. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd.