The annual number of chapters in collected works steadily increased between 2001 and 2006, with the exception of 2005 when a decrease was recorded. On average, between 2001 and 2006 there were about 220 collected works and 460 chapters per year. The vast majority of col- lected works were published in the fields of social sciences (47%) and humanities and arts (31%). The majority of collected works (78%) were published by overseas publishers, and the figure has remained more or less stable (73%-81%) over the past six years. Overseas publishing houses dominate the production of collected works in all five fields. Commer- cial publishers produced close to half of the collected works.
Interrelationship between authors producing monographs,
• Second, from the side of authors of chapters in collected works: the number of chapters produced by the most productive chapter aut- hors, correlated with the number of monographs and articles pro- duced by these chapter authors.
• Third, from the side of article authors: the number of articles pro- duced by the most productive article authors, correlated with the number of monographs and chapters in collected works produced by these article authors.
In all instances, the relationship was first investigated by means of a cross-tabulation, followed by a non-parametric Spearman rank-order analysis (Spearman’s rho). Statistical significance in the case of the cross-tabulations was determined by means of a Chi-square test. In most cases, however, the resulting Chi-square statistics were invalid be- cause of low excepted cell frequencies resulting from the small group sizes. Thus, emphasis rather fell on the value of Cramer’s V, which is a measure of the strength of the association between the two variables measured. (A relatively strong relationship is normally indicated by a Cramer’s value of 0.3 or higher; in the case of the Spearman’s rank- order analysis, a statistically significant relationship is evident where the associated probability is less than 0.05 (i.e. where p<0.05)). Spearman’s rho was computed per field.
The most productive monograph authors and their production of articles and chapters in collected works
‘Most productive monograph authors’ were defined as those who authored at least two monographs between 2001 and 2006. The mono- graph database contained 74 productive authors in total – 36 in the field of humanities and arts, 25 in the social sciences, four in both the social sciences and humanities and arts, and nine in the natural and agricultural sciences. None of the most productive authors produced monographs in health sciences or in engineering sciences and applied technologies. Moreover, 23 of the 74 most productive monograph authors published chapters in collected works between 2001 and 2006, and 49 of the 74 most productive monograph authors also published journal articles between 2001 and 2004 (see Appendix A).
Almost 70% of the most productive monograph authors did not produce any chapters in collected works between 2001 and 2006. Somewhat surprisingly, nearly 40% of those who had published two monographs in this period did not produce any articles. As one would expect, those who are productive in monograph production tended also to publish more articles – 44% of those who produced three or more monographs
also produced more than three articles over this period. The relationship between the number of monographs and articles produced by the most productive monograph authors was statistically significant, ac- cording to the results of the Spearman’s rho.
Most productive authors of chapters in collected works and their pro- duction of monographs and articles
A ‘most productive author of chapters in collected works’ was defined as someone who produced at least three chapters in collected works between 2001 and 2006. The database included 371 productive chap- ter authors. Of these, only 23 also produced monographs over the same period and 258 published journal articles between 2001 and 2004 (see appendix A). The results of the interrelationships between chapter, monograph and article production for these 371 chapter authors ap- pear in Tables 3.2 to 3.3.
About 94% of the authors productive in chapter publication did not pro- duce any monographs over the same period. Chapter and article pro- duction by the most productive chapter authors showed almost no relationship. Only in the field of social sciences did productive chapter authors also tend to publish more articles. In humanities and arts the trend was for productive chapter authors also to publish more monographs.
Most productive article authors and their production of monographs and chapters in collected works
The 20 most productive article authors for the period 2001-2004 were identified based on the article output of South African authors in SAK.
This was done by broad field as well as across fields. Of the 20 most pro- ductive article authors overall, six also published monographs and five also published chapters between 2001 and 2006.
Productive article authors in natural and agricultural sciences also tended to publish monographs whereas productive article authors in social sciences tended not to publish chapters in collected works.
Thus no clear pattern emerged from the analysis of the interrelationships between monograph, chapter and article publication. Productivity in article production did not necessarily correspond to productivity in scholarly book production (monographs and chapters in collected works). The practical conclusion is that the monographs and chapters
produced by the most productive article authors could not be re- garded as ‘more scientific’ simply because the majority of productive article authors (94%) did not produce monographs. Only in the field of humanities and arts did the most productive article authors also pro- duce more chapters in collected works.