http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0403184

Authors: Aa. Sandqvist (Stockholm Observatory, AlbaNova, Stockholm, Sweden) Comments: 4 pages, to be published in A. Heck (ed.) "Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy, Vol. 5" (Kluwer, 2004)

There is a widespread impression that the scientific journal "Astronomy & Astrophysics" (A&A) has a smaller impact, as measured by citations to articles, than some of the other major astronomy journals. This impression was apparently supported - and probably created - by the Journal Citation Report (JCR), which is prepared annually by the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) Web of Knowledge. The published poor impact factor of A&A was in fact wrong and was due to a serious flaw in the method used by ISI Web of Knowledge to determine it. The resulting damage inflicted upon A&A by the JCR is incalculable.