The life span of a specific topic on the Web - The case of "informetrics":A quantitative analysis

in this case study a first attempt was made to explore data on the Web for a certain period of time by using bibliometric methods for analysis. The pe riod under investigation was between January 3, 1998 and June 7, 1998. An a dditional search was carried out on June 20, 1999. The terms used were "inf ormetrics or informetric". The results show that substantial changes occurr ed to the "literature on the Web" on informetrics during this period. Three specific trends were observed: some documents disappeared, new ones were a dded and some underwent changes.