Besides being one of the conceptual inventors of the Internet (P. Ball Nature 509, 425; 2014), the Belgian librarian Paul Otlet first coined the term 'bibliometrics'. In his book Traité de Documentation (1934), he called for the foundation of a new field, bibliométrie, which he defined as the measurement of all aspects related to the publication and reading of books and documents.

As an example, Otlet suggested recording how often a particular book or author is read. He noted that mathematics was becoming increasingly important in most scientific fields, including in biology and sociology, and felt that it should be included in library science as well.