Assessing the impact of scholarly books is a difficult research evaluation problem. Library Catalog Analysis facilitates the quantitative study, at different levels, of the impact and diffusion of academic books based on data about their availability in libraries. The WorldCat global catalog collates data on library holdings, offering a range of tools including the novel WorldCat Identities. This is based on author profiles and provides indicators relating to the availability of their books in library catalogs. Here, we investigate this new tool to identify its strengths and weaknesses based on a sample of Bibliometrics and Scientometrics authors. We review the problems that this entails and compare Library Catalog Analysis indicators with Google Scholar and Web of Science citations. The results show that WorldCat Identities can be a useful tool for book impact assessment but the value of its data is undermined by the provision of massive collections of ebooks to academic libraries.

中文翻译：

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探索 WorldCat 身份作为替代计量信息源：科学计量学领域的图书馆目录分析实验

评估学术书籍的影响是一个困难的研究评估问题。图书馆目录分析有助于在不同层次上根据学术书籍在图书馆中的可用性数据对学术书籍的影响和传播进行定量研究。WorldCat 全球目录整理有关图书馆馆藏的数据，提供了一系列工具，包括新颖的 WorldCat Identities。这是基于作者简介，并提供与他们的图书在图书馆目录中的可用性相关的指标。在这里，我们根据文献计量学和科学计量学作者的样本调查了这个新工具，以确定其优势和劣势。我们回顾了这带来的问题，并将图书馆目录分析指标与 Google Scholar 和 Web of Science 引文进行了比较。