Multiple authors, multiple problems: bibliometrics and the study of scholarly collaboration: a literature review

This literature review covers multiple authorship as it relates to research on scholarly publishing within library and information science. The article examines the research on collaboration in other disciplines and considers the methodological impact of various ways of allotting «credit» for multi-authored works and the relationships between multiple authorship and other publication variables, such as quality and impact. Given the complex relationship between collaboration and productivity, the concomitant use of nonbibliometric methods of studying collaboration, as well as the application of meta-analysis, is suggested