Much Obliged: Analyzing the Importance and Impact of Acknowledgements in Scholarly Communication

What this paper argues is that the acknowledgments are a crucial but overlooked aspect of scholarly communication and bibliometrics. Not only would a comprehensive analysis of acknowledgements provide a more accurate description
of intellectual networks, further eroding the myth of the lone scholar, but it would also quantify and illuminate the importance of libraries and librarians in the scholarly communication process. As a corollary, tenure-track librarians should include research acknowledgments in tenure and promotion reports in order to demonstrate their contributions to scholarship.