摘要：The international reputation of scientific journals as amean of communication may be tested in different ways(see Z ITT & B ASSECOULARD 1998), but the most significantcalculations are based on citation analysis of included arti-cles. This is an obvious record of the truly world-wide circu-lation of the journal, coupled with the proven utility of pub-lished results (G ARFIELD 1990), i.e., successes in the increas-ing ‘competition for attention’ in modern science (F RANCK1999). The most comprehensive and reliable source of suchdata is the system of indexation of science and technologyjournals created by the Institute for Scientific Information(ISI) in Philadelphia. In principle, to find the position of ajournal in the ISI ranking it is enough to consult the annu-ally published statistical database Journal Citation Reports -1999 Science Edition (JCR), where bibliometric charactersare presented for the 5550 source ‘master’ journals (see theISI Homepage http://www.isinet.com). Acta GeologicaPolonica (AGP) has not been included in the coverage bythe online Science Citation Index (SCI) Expanded.Consequently, AGP is not rated by ISI.
