Referenced Publication Year Spectroscopy (RPYS) and Algorithmic Historiography: The Bibliometric Reconstruction of András Schubert’s Œuvre

Referenced Publication Year Spectroscopy (RPYS) was recently introduced as a method to analyze the historical roots of research fields and groups or institutions. RPYS maps the distribution of the publication years of the cited referencesin a document set. In this study, we apply this methodology to the oeuvre of an individual researcher on the occasion of aFestschrift for András Schubert’s 70th birthday. We discuss the different options of RPYS in relation to one another (e.g. Multi-RPYS), and in relation to the longer-term research program of algorithmic historiography (e.g., HistCite™) based on Schubert’spublications (n=172) and cited references therein as a bibliographic domain in scientometrics. Main path analysis and Multi-RPYS of the citation network are used to show the changes and continuities in Schubert’s intellectual career. Diachronic and static decomposition of a document set can lead to different results, while the analytically distinguishable lines of research may overlap and interact over time, and intermittently.