The unification of addresses in scientific publications

Abstract

Addresses in scientific publications contain a large number of variations. This phenomenon has serious consequences for the availability of information and for evaluative bibliometrics. Organizations are difficult to identify and become "scattered' in rankings. To solve this problem, we developed a strategy of unification, i.e. classification of all variations by one name. To begin with, we sorted on the first part of the address. Next, we unified these addresses by the name of an overall organization (such as a university). We did so by analyzing the publication data. For some countries we performed further research in handbooks and encyclopedias. We solved the problem of scattering of organizations over several suburbs by bringing these city names under the denominator of the conurbation like Paris, London, etc. We unified variations i n country names by the official name or its abbreviation.