Obsolescence of Literature in the Field of Social Sciences

This study has attempted to examine the obsolescence of literature in social science. Three journals were selected to collect data for the period 2006–2010 viz., the Journal of Social and Economic Development, the Journal of Polity and Society and the Journal of Social Change. These three journals together contributed 283 articles with 11271 citations. It is observed that the citation frequency follows a negative exponential pattern. The half-life of literature is found to be 9.04, AF=0.9262, utility factor=13.55 and corrected obsolescence=0.9482.