Using the Web of Science for the study of lesser disciplines in Humanities: the case of folklore

This paper endeavors to show the usefulness of Web of Science (WoS) in obtaining information about production and impact of Folklore within the larger framework of the Humanities. As yet, there has been no general bibliometric analysis of the discipline. The main features of the field, emanating from the study itself, are described. Using an advanced search protocol, data were retrieved from the Web of Science for the category “Folklore”. The distribution of citations of each paper was obtained using the Citation Report tool. Results show the great importance of book reviews. Collaborative authorship is still unusual, whereas authors frequently publish in languages other than English. Despite its limitations in with regard to performing a comprehensive bibliometric study of the behavior of a discipline, the use of WoS data allows the identification of other relevant information from the field of folklore.