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The taxonomy considered here would be a crucial preliminary step towards a theory of S&T indicators. Its construction is different from that of other taxonomies in the field of innovation, since it has a methodological character, not a quantitative one. It serves as a caveat against hasty decisions, potentially damaging to progress on the study of indicators.

The introduction of citational analysis has caused adaptive responses in the scientific community and its journals, which have been widely discussed in the literature on the evaluation of scientific research. In this work, we deal with the problem of quantitatively measuring the importance of scientific journals when an impact factor is not available, as occurs for most journals in the humanities areas. We conduct a survey to investigate the editorial polices of such journals. We conclude that the 'selectivity of journals in their choice of papers for publication', and the 'journal diffusion are sensitive and useful indicators, which can be used in conjunction with the classical impact indicators already available in order to evaluate the role of the journals.