Bradford's law: Part 11- an alternative explanation from the field of economics

Abstract

Attempts to explain the Bradford's Law have failed to provide sufficient explanations on the reasons the most and least productive journals could not be predicted by the Bradford's curve. Nevertheless those segments of the curve not conforming to Bradford distribution are accepted as part of the same Law. This paper suggests an alternative explanation from the field of Economics. The proposition questions the straight line fit and supports the existence of an inflection point where the curve changes from concave to convex. The Groos Droop and the crash activity zone in this alternative explanation are predictable from the economic theory perspective.

West African Journal of Library, Archives and Information Science Vol. 16(2) 2006: 123-128