An Update on Time Lag in Mathematical References, Preprint Relevance, and Subject Specifics

[摘要] Almost five years ago, we reported in this column on whatturned out to be the most extensive study at the time ofcitation delay of mathematics publications [1]. Backin 2012, we were quite satisfied to have reference dataavailable for about 50,000 EuDML articles and 170,000zbMATH articles; this already accounted for a larger proportion of the mathematical literature when compared tocommercial citation databases, which tend to be less comprehensive for the field of mathematics. Today, however,the situation has changed considerably. Further digitisation efforts and improved availability of reference datanow allow the interrogation of about 20 million referencesfor more than 900,000 mathematical articles in zbMATH.Furthermore, linking them to available zbMATH entriesand arXiv submissions also facilitates an analysis of subject specifics and preprint effects. While a detailed investigation is beyond the limits of this column, we take theopportunity to outline some aspects that become visiblewhen taking extended data into account.