Following the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 disease, within less than 8 months, the 50 years-old scholarly literature of coronaviruses grew to nearly three times larger than its size prior to 2020. Here, temporal evolution of the coronavirus literature over the last 30 years (N = 43,769) is analysed along with its subdomain of SARS-CoV-2 articles (N = 27,460) and the subdomain of reviews and meta-analytic studies (N = 1027). The analyses are conducted through the lenses of co-citation and bibliographic coupling of documents. (1) Of the N = 1204 review and meta-analytical articles of the coronavirus literature, nearly 88% have been published and indexed during the first 8 months of 2020, marking an unprecedented attention to reviews and meta-analyses in this domain, prompted by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. (2) The subset of 2020 SARS-CoV-2 articles is bibliographically distant from the rest of this literature published prior to 2020. Individual articles of the SARS-CoV-2 segment with a bridging role between the two bodies of articles (i.e., before and after 2020) are identifiable. (3) Furthermore, the degree of bibliographic coupling within the 2020 SARS-CoV-2 cluster is much poorer compared to the cluster of articles published prior to 2020. This could, in part, be explained by the higher diversity of topics that are studied in relation to SARS-CoV-2 compared to the literature of coronaviruses published prior to the SARS-CoV-2 disease. (4) The analyses on the subset of SARS-CoV-2 literature identified studies published prior to 2020 that have now proven highly instrumental in the development of various clusters of publications linked to SARS-CoV-2. In particular, the so-called "sleeping beauties" of the coronavirus literature with an awakening in 2020 were identified, i.e., previously published studies of this literature that had remained relatively unnoticed for several years but gained sudden traction in 2020 in the wake of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. This work documents the historical development of the literature on coronaviruses as an event-driven literature and as a domain that exhibited, arguably, the most exceptional case of publication burst in the history of science. It also demonstrates how scholarly efforts undertaken during peace time or prior to a disease outbreak could suddenly play a critical role in prevention and mitigation of health disasters caused by new diseases. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11192-021-04036-4.

中文翻译：

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冠状病毒文献的时间演变、最具影响力的研究和睡美人。

在 SARS-CoV-2 疾病爆发后，在不到 8 个月的时间里，已有 50 年历史的冠状病毒学术文献的数量增长到 2020 年之前的近三倍。这里，冠状病毒文献在过去的时间演变30 年 (N = 43,769) 连同其 SARS-CoV-2 文章的子域 (N = 27,460) 以及评论和元分析研究的子域 (N = 1027) 一起被分析。这些分析是通过文件的共同引用和书目耦合的镜头进行的。(1) 在 N = 1204 篇冠状病毒文献综述和荟萃分析文章中，近 88% 已在 2020 年前 8 个月发表并被编入索引，标志着对该领域综述和荟萃分析的空前关注，提示由 SARS-CoV-2 大流行引起。(2) 2020 年 SARS-CoV-2 文章的子集在书目上与 2020 年之前发表的其他文献相距甚远。SARS-CoV-2 部分的个别文章在两个文章主体之间起着桥梁作用（即， 2020 年之前和之后）是可识别的。(3) 此外，与 2020 年之前发表的文章集群相比，2020 年 SARS-CoV-2 集群中的书目耦合程度要差得多。这在一定程度上可以解释为所研究主题的多样性更高与 SARS-CoV-2 相关的文献与 SARS-CoV-2 疾病之前发表的冠状病毒文献相比。(4) 对 SARS-CoV-2 文献子集的分析确定了 2020 年之前发表的研究，这些研究现已证明对开发与 SARS-CoV-2 相关的各种出版物集群非常有帮助。特别是，确定了所谓的 2020 年觉醒的冠状病毒文献“睡美人”，即先前发表的此类文献研究多年来一直相对不为人所知，但在 2020 年疫情爆发后突然受到关注。 SARS-CoV-2 爆发。这项工作记录了关于冠状病毒的文献的历史发展，作为一种事件驱动的文献，作​​为一个领域，可以说是科学史上最特殊的出版爆发案例。它还展示了在和平时期或疾病爆发之前进行的学术努力如何突然在预防和减轻新疾病引起的健康灾难方面发挥关键作用。补充信息 在线版本包含可在 10 获得的补充材料。