Impact factor: do we have to choose between the impact factor and the Revue de Chirurgie Orthopedique?

It is common practice to evaluate the scientific value of a candidate for a university or hospital position using the mean of the impact factors of th e journals he/she has published in, This shows that the true composition an d true meaning of the impact factor are not sufficiently understood. The im pact factor was invented in the 60s to help librarians choose the most read journals. The impact factor provides an accurate definition of the distrib ution of a journal, but in no case the quality of its publications. Moreove r, the impact factor has many technical limitations that are detailed in th is article. This strongly limits the accuracy of the impact factor to compa re between journals of different specialties. There is no correlation betwe en the scientific value of a single author and the impact factor of the jou rnals he/she has published in. Eugene Garfield, the inventor of the impact factor, has emphasized that it should not be used to judge the scientific v alue of a candidate.