A note on different Bradford multipliers

Abstract

In this note we show that the multiplier k that appears in the law of Bradford is not the average production of articles per author nor the average number p of articles per journal, contradicting some earlier statements of Goffman and Warren and of Yablonsky. We remark however that the Bradford multiplier might be close to p in a lot of cases, being merely a coincidence of the special functional relation between ~1 and k which we develop in full detail. We finally show that K = kplA (p = number of Bradford groups, A = total numbers of articles) is a universal constant for the bibliography. Furthermore, K is the Bradford multiplier of a group free formulation of Bradford’s law, introduced in an earlier article of the author.