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Although there are Journal Impact Factors (JIFs) for journals, there is no similar indicator for book publishers. National publisher lists are used instead to account for the general \u201cquality\u201d of books, leading to institutional rewards. But, just as the JIF is not recommended as a proxy for the \u201ccitedness\u201d of a paper, a publisher rating is also not recommended as a proxy for the impact of an individual book. We introduce a small fish in a big pond versus big fish in a small pond metaphor, where a \u201cfish\u201d is a book and \u201cthe pond\u201d represents its publishing house. We investigate how books fit on this metaphorical fish and pond continuum, using WorldCat holdings (visibility) and Google Scholar citations (impact), and test other variables to determine their predictive value with respect to these two indicators. Our statistics show that publisher levels do not have predictive value when other variables are held constant. This has implications for PRFS and book evaluations in general, as well as ongoing developments related to a newly proposed international publisher registry.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1162\/qss_a_00134","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,5,6]],"date-time":"2021-05-06T07:35:28Z","timestamp":1620286528000},"page":"588-615","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1162\/mitpressjournals.corrections.policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":5,"title":["Performance-based publisher ratings and the visibility\/impact of books: Small fish in a big pond, or big fish in a small pond?"],"prefix":"10.1162","volume":"2","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3045-0857","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Alesia A.","family":"Zuccala","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Communication, University of Copenhagen, Karen Blixens Plads 8, Copenhagen, Denmark"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1649-0879","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Janne","family":"P\u00f6l\u00f6nen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Federation of Finnish Learned Societies, Helsinki, Finland"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3129-0330","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Raf","family":"Guns","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Centre for R&D Monitoring (ECOOM), Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Antwerp, Middelheimlaan 1, 2020 Antwerp, Belgium"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1403-1663","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Vidar","family":"R\u00f8eggen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Universities Norway, Stortorvet 2, 0155 Oslo, Norway"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6530-3609","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Emanuel","family":"Kulczycki","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Scholarly Communication Research Group, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poznan, Poland"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-2731-0127","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Kasper","family":"Bruun","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Roskilde University Library, Roskilde University, Universitetsvej 1 DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5435-0300","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Eeva","family":"Savolainen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Aalto University, Research Services, Otaniementie 9, 02150 Espoo, Finland"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"281","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,7,15]]},"reference":[{"issue":"5","key":"2025073014031558500_bib1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"725","DOI":"10.1093\/scipol\/scu087","article-title":"How incentives trickle down: Local use of a national bibliometric indicator system","volume":"42","author":"Aagaard","year":"2015","journal-title":"Science and Public Policy"},{"issue":"4","key":"2025073014031558500_bib2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"20","DOI":"10.2478\/jdis-2018-0018","article-title":"Performance-based research funding in Denmark: The adoption and translation of the Norwegian model","volume":"3","author":"Aagaard","year":"2018","journal-title":"Journal of Data and Information Science"},{"issue":"3","key":"2025073014031558500_bib3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"635","DOI":"10.1007\/s11192-007-2036-x","article-title":"History of the journal impact factor: Contingencies and consequences","volume":"79","author":"Archambault","year":"2009","journal-title":"Scientometrics"},{"key":"2025073014031558500_bib4","article-title":"Artikler i niv\u00e5 2-tidsskrifter blir mest sitter","author":"Aksnes","year":"2017","journal-title":"Forskerforum"},{"key":"2025073014031558500_bib5","volume-title":"Classification of scientific publication channels: Final report of the Publication Forum project (2010\u20132012)","author":"Auranen","year":"2012"},{"key":"2025073014031558500_bib6","volume-title":"Yesterday was a big day in the life of Humanomics Research Centre. 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