  This paper aimed to provide an approach to investigate the historical roots
and evolution of research fields in China by extending the reference
publication year spectroscopy (RPYS). RootCite, an open source software accepts
raw data from both the Web of Science and the China Social Science Citation
Index (CSSCI), was developed using python. We took iMetrics in China as the
research case. 5,141 Chinese iMetrics related publications with 73,376
non-distinct cited references (CR) collected from the CSSCI were analyzed using
RootCite. The results showed that the first CR in the field can be dated back
to 1882 and written in English; but the majority (64.2%) of the CR in the field
were Chinese publications. 17 peaks referring to 18 seminal works (13 in
English and 5 in Chinese) were located during the period from 1900 to 2017. The
field shared the same roots with that in the English world but has its own
characteristics, and it was then shaped by contributions from both the English
world and China. The five Chinese works have played irreplaceable and positive
roles in the historical evolutionary path of the field, which should not be
ignored, especially for the evolution of the field. This research demonstrated
how RootCite aided the task of identifying the origin and evolution of research
fields in China, which could be valuable for extending RPYS for countries with
other languages.
