Correlation between the CiteScore and Journal Impact Factor of top-ranked library and information science journals

Elsevier's Scopus CiteScore may be a practically more useful journal-based metric than Clarivate Analytics' Journal Impact Factor (JIF) because it is open and transparent about the background data used to derive the metric and because it confers a metric to Scopus-indexed journals that do not carry a JIF. In this study, we wanted to assess whether the CiteScore and JIF of library and information science (LIS) journals was in any way correlated. Drawing on a sample of 212 LIS journals indexed in Scopus and carrying a CiteScore, the top quartile was compared with 43 top-ranking JIF-carrying LIS journals. The average CiteScore (3.27) of the 43 LIS journals was higher than their average JIF (2.425), indicating different citation patterns in Scopus and Web of Science, respectively. Their CiteScore and JIF showed a strong significant positive correlation (r = 0.787; r(s) = 0.828). The relationship between CiteScore and JIF is valid between 42.6 and 68.6% of all 43 top-ranked LIS journals.