Daejeon, July 27–31
This study expands upon our previous work (Kim / Song 2025) for a more in-depth investigation by using the dataset. This prior work outlined the methodology for processing the Bulletin for Korean Historical Studies to create a dataset and conducted a preliminary analysis.
Although modern historical scholarship has been produced in journal articles and monographs, traditional qualitative historiography struggles to account for the vast volume of this accumulated knowledge. Consequently, current practices mainly focus on close reading of short-term or specific texts and thematic trends. This approach has marginalized questions about the structures of scholarly communication in contemporary historiography: Who produces what knowledge through which formats, and from which groups?
Data-driven historiography remains limited. Most either focused on semantic analysis (Nok-du Team / Park 2024; Gómez-Carrasco et al. 2022) or utilize historical scholarship data to explain general academic patterns (Risi et al. 2022), overlooking history’s specific disciplinary ecosystem. Moreover, while Colavizza (2017, 2018) demonstrated the citation practices and its transformation in Western contemporary historiography by using bibliometric data such as Web of Science (WoS), these quantitative approaches remain largely absent in non-Western scholarly contexts, leaving them unexamined.
This study addresses these gaps by reframing bibliometric metadata as ‘representative information of knowledge.’ Specifically, we investigate the Bulletin for Korean Historical Studies (BKHS), as high-quality structured data, encoding nearly a century of scholarly communication in modern Korean Historical Studies (KHS, 1930s-present). Through this case study, we not only expand the scope of modern historiography but also extend quantitative analysis to a non-Western historiographical ecosystem, revealing structural patterns in knowledge production.
Utilizing BKHS records, we conduct two quantitative bibliometric analyses. First, we examine the macroscopic dynamics of scholarly communication in KHS by exmining publication trends for both research articles and monographs, as well as page count distribution. Second, we analyze regional topography of the KHS ecosystem in South Korea: the geographical distribution of knowledge production, institutional concentration, and the research specializations.
BKHS, published since 1973, played a crucial role in unifying Korean historiography from a spatially fragmented field into a cohesive scholarly community. In an era of regional isolation and limited communication channels, BKHS documented publications, institutional news, and scholarly activities nationwide. This not only fulfilled critical information needs of twentieth-century Korean historians but also enabled scholarly exchange across regional boundaries, integrating isolated local research ecosystems into a nationwide academic field.
Importantly, BKHS was created through engagement of historians who were knowledge producers and consumers. Editors at the National Institute of Korean History mailed survey cards to academic societies and researchers, who voluntarily submitted their bibliographic records. This collaborative documentation over five decades makes BKHS a historical record of collective academic action. While prior research has primarily utilized it merely as a publication list (e.g. Song 2025; Kim 2025), its metadata, over 250,000 KHS bibliographic records categorized by publication year and place, editor-labeled historical eras, etc., now provides a comprehensive, centralized archive that allows the quantitative, macro-level analysis necessary to reveal the structural dynamics of modern Korean historiography.
Figure {1} The First BKHS and a Survey Card to Collect Scholarly Activities
Publication trends in KHS reveal two distinct dynamics: the macroscopic trajectory of field expansion and stabilization, and the transformation of scholarly formats. KHS, which began with the introduction of Western academic norms during the Japanese colonial period, has undergone gradual quantitative growth. Annual publication volume reached over 3,000 in 2000 and peaked at over 6,000 in 2010. Following a slight decrease, the field entered a phase of stabilization, maintaining annual publication between 4,000 and 5,000 to the present.
Simultaneously, these indicators reveal a marked divergence, particularly in the monograph production. As shown in figure 2, while research article volume maintained an increasing trend until peaking in 2010, monograph production fluctuated significantly. Interestingly, declines in monograph volume coincided with major socioeconomic shocks in South Korea: The Asian Financial Crisis (late 1990s), the Global Financial Crisis (late 2000s), and the expansion of the publishing policy, the Korean Fixed Book Price Scheme (mid-2010s). This correlation reveals that the sustainability and stability of Korean historical scholarship are intertwined with the broader economic conditions of Korean society.
Furthermore, institutional changes—the establishment of the Korea Citation Index (KCI) in 2008 and quantitative research assessment systems—have influenced the change in scholarly communication medium (Kim 2022). While the high value of monographs in humanities is widely recognized (Townsend 2004; Lee 2017; Kim 2024), this trend suggests that KHS researchers may be increasingly prioritizing articles over monographs as the primary medium to fulfill assessment criteria (Chung 2017; Oh 2023) for job positions. This shift could be interpreted as a fundamental transformation in the historians’ mode of knowledge production.
The analysis of page count distribution in KHS Articles (Figure 3) illustrates the formation and convergence of the physical standards of scholarly communication. While practical variations clearly exist due to differing length requirements, page sizes, and economic constraints such as submission and publication fees across journals, we apply Gérard Genette’s (1997) concept of “paratext”—the material and formal elements framing a text—to analyze this trend. This approach assumes that shared norms of page distribution exist in each period, reflecting disciplinary conventions to represent knowledge rather than mere practical constraints.
As visualized in Figure 3, a transition is evident from the irregular, dispersed distribution of the formative period to a distinct convergence within the 20-to-40-page range since the 1990s. This physical trajectory demonstrates the establishment of standardized academic norms. However, relying solely on these indicators limits a full comprehension of the academic community. While this trend serves as crucial historical evidence, it provides a vital starting point for further discussions. A comprehensive understanding of modern KHS field’s formation will require qualitative research that integrates these findings with socio-academic contexts.
Figure {2} Annual Publication Trends in Korean Historical Studies
Figure {3} Heatmap of Article Page Counts (~100) by Year
The spatial analysis of publication place reveals a dual structure in Korean historiography: a core-periphery structure and emerging regional research identities. 72.8% of all research originates from the capital area of South Korea (Seoul and surrounding metropolitan areas), confirming a highly centralized structure of knowledge production. However, this concentration has gradually declined. The establishment of local historical societies and their journals, since 1969, has fostered regional growth as pivotal academic hubs. As a result, the publication share of non-capital regions has reached approximately 34% over the past five years. This indicates the evolution of non-capital areas from periphery into independent scholarship ecosystems.
Such findings uncover distinct regional intellectual topographies. Non-capital KHS scholarship typically organizes around local history societies and their journals, whose research agendas reflect regional historical contexts. For instance, research in Chungcheong province (central Korea), which was a fierce battlefield for the Three Kingdoms in Ancient Korea, was primarily focused on ancient history (BC 2333 – AD 918). However, after the establishment of a public institution for modern Korea in 1987, The Independence Hall of Korea, the number of Modern research publications in Chungcheong increased. Similarly, recent research published in Jeju Island (Jeju) and South Jeolla province (Jeonnam, southwestern Korea) shows a significant increase in contemporary history of Korea (1945 – present), which holds the memory of state violence in contemporary Korea: The May 18 Gwangju Democratic Uprising (1980) and the Jeju 4·3 Incident (1947). This analysis offers a lens through which to understand the distinct historical identities that non-capital regions in Korea have constructed.
These results show that regional topography of KHS is not a simple monocentric structure. Instead, it is composed of a multi-layered network, with the capital region as the apex, interconnected with research institutions, local academic societies, and researchers across various regions. In other words, constructing a knowledge topography through bibliometrics offers an analysis that considers both the temporal and spatial axes simultaneously. This provides a crucial indicator for inferring the spatial bias and differentiation of the modern historiography.
Figure {4} Growing Trend Publication of Non-Capital Region Journals and Publishers based on Local Historical Societies
Figure {5} Annual Distribution of Research Topics (Korean Historical Periodization) by Provinces of South Korea (The highlighted segments with black borders correspond to the regional examples described in the analysis.)
By examining bibliometric data of modern Korean historiography, this study suggests broadening conventional methodologies toward quantitative approaches, expanding the historiographical lens from close reading of specific text to distant reading of the entire field. First, we redefine bibliometric data from historians’ intellectual production as ‘representative information of knowledge.’ Second, by analyzing these data quantitatively, we offer an interdisciplinary perspective to reveal the sociological structure of knowledge production in modern historical scholarship. Through a case study of the BKHS, this research demonstrates the possibility of data-driven historiography.
Our analysis shows two major structural dimensions. First, the stability and format of KHS are intertwined with external factors such as socioeconomic shocks and national institutional policies. Simultaneously, page count standardization (20-40 pages since the 1990s) reflects shared physical norms. Second, spatial analysis reveals centralization in the capital area alongside emerging regional identities, with non-capital areas developing distinct research agendas shaped by local contexts. After all, these findings validate the possibility of utilizing bibliometric data for comprehensive, structural historiographical research.
This framework can be combined with methodologies from informetrics and science of science, or comparative research with other scholarly fields from the same period, using OpenAlex, WoS, KCI. In addition, future work should integrate this distant reading with qualitative paratextual approaches to reveal the historical meaning of KHS’s intellectual trajectories.