Caveats for the use of Web of Science Core Collection in old literature retrieval and historical bibliometric analysis

By using publications from Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC), Fosso Wamba and his colleagues published an interesting and comprehensive paper in Technological Forecasting and Social Change to explore the structure and dynamics of artificial intelligence (AI) scholarship. Data demonstrated in Fosso Wamba's study implied that the year 1991 seemed to be a "watershed" of AI research. This research note tried to uncover the 1991 phenomenon from the perspective of database limitation by probing the limitations of search in abstract/author keywords/keywords plus fields of WoSCC empirically. The low availability rates of abstract/author keywords/ keywords plus information in WoSCC found in this study can explain the "watershed" phenomenon of AI scholarship in 1991 to a large extent. The findings in this study are also applicable to other WoSCC-based studies focusing on fields from natural science, social sciences, to arts and humanities. Besides, some other caveats for the use of WoSCC in old literature retrieval and historical bibliometric analysis were also mentioned in the discussion section. This research note complements Fosso Wamba and his colleagues' study and also helps avoid improper interpretation in the use of WoSCC in old literature retrieval and historical bibliometric analysis.