Judit Bar-Ilan (1958 – 16 July 2019) was a prominent Israeli information scientist, known for her significant contributions to the fields of informetrics, bibliometrics, and webometrics. She was a professor in the Department of Information Science at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel.
Bar-Ilan's research focused extensively on the quantitative analysis of scholarly communication and information retrieval. Her work covered a broad range of topics including citation analysis, altmetrics, the evaluation of search engines (particularly Google Scholar), and the impact of open access on scholarly publishing. She was a pioneer in applying informetric methods to the study of web resources, making her a key figure in the development of webometrics.
Throughout her career, Bar-Ilan published numerous influential papers in leading academic journals such as Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (JASIST), Scientometrics, and Journal of Informetrics. She was actively involved in various professional organizations, including the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) and the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics (ISSI), where she served on committees and contributed to the advancement of her discipline. She also held editorial roles for several academic journals, helping to shape the discourse and direction of information science research.
Her work provided crucial insights into how scholarly information is produced, disseminated, and consumed, and her methodologies have been widely adopted by researchers in information science and related fields. Judit Bar-Ilan is remembered for her rigorous research, innovative approaches, and dedication to understanding the dynamics of information in the digital age.