Informetrics is the study of quantitative aspects of information. This includes the production, dissemination, and use of all forms of information, regardless of its form or origin. Informetrics encompasses the following fields:
The term informetrics (French: Informetrie) was coined by Nacke in 1979.
In the western world, 20th century's Informetrics is mostly based on Lotka's law, named after Alfred J. Lotka, Zipf's law, named after George Kingsley Zipf, Bradford's law named after Samuel C. Bradford and on the work of Derek J. de Solla Price, Gerard Salton, Leo Egghe, Ronald Rousseau, Tibor Braun, Olle Persson, Peter Ingwersen, Manfred Bonitz, and Eugene Garfield.
Quantitative analysis of bibliographic data was pioneered by Robert K. Merton in an article called Science, Technology, and Society in Seventeenth Century England and originally published by Merton in 1938.