  Although bibliometrics are normally applied to journal articles when used to
support research evaluations, conference papers are at least as important in
fast-moving computing-related fields. It is therefore important to assess the
relative advantages of citations and altmetrics for computing conference papers
to make an informed decision about which, if any, to use. This paper compares
Scopus citations with Mendeley reader counts for conference papers and journal
articles that were published between 1996 and 2018 in 11 computing fields and
had at least one US author. The data showed high correlations between Scopus
citation counts and Mendeley reader counts in all fields and most years, but
with few Mendeley readers for older conference papers and few Scopus citations
for new conference papers and journal articles. The results therefore suggest
that Mendeley reader counts have a substantial advantage over citation counts
for recently-published conference papers due to their greater speed, but are
unsuitable for older conference papers.
