The objective of this paper is to explore the impact of preprints in scholarly and
broader scientific communication. in particular, the following four indicators are
used to examine the 550 arXiv and 5782 non-arXiv papers in three major journals in
Library & Information Science (LIS): citations from Web of Science Core Collection
(WoS), Scopus and Google Scholar, usage counts in WoS, Mendeley readers and Tweets.
The results show that arXiv papers have significant citation advantage across WoS,
Scopus and Google Scholar in each year. Google Scholar provides statistically significantly
larger number of citations and more 'early citations' than Scopus and WoS, but does
not reflect greater citation advantage for arXiv papers. The impact advantage of arXiv
papers can also be observed in Mendeley, but to a much lesser extent in WoS usage
counts and in Tweets, indicating that arXiv papers gain broader attention than non-arXiv
papers not only from users of the WoS. Mendeley readership as well as the usage counts
in WoS have strong correlations with WoS citations, which are much stronger than those
of Tweets. We can also conclude that unlike citations, information derived from statistics
on users, readers and social media needs further exploration and in the case of social
media also proper context analysis.
