In this Digest we review a recent study released by the Google Scholar team on the apparently increasing fraction of citations to old articles from studies published in the last 24 years (1990-2013). First, we describe the main findings of their article. Secondly, we conduct an analogue study, using a different data source as well as different measures which throw very similar results, thus confirming the phenomenon. Lastly, we discuss the possible causes of this phenomenon.
@article{arxiv.1501.02084,
title = {Reviving the past: the growth of citations to old documents},
author = {Alberto Martín-Martín and Enrique Orduña-Malea and Juan Manuel Ayllón and Emilio Delgado López-Cózar},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1501.02084},
year = {2015}
}