  Assessing the impact of scholarly books is a difficult research evaluation
problem. Library Catalog Analysis facilitates the quantitative study, at
different levels, of the impact and diffusion of academic books based on data
about their availability in libraries. The WorldCat global catalog collates
data on library holdings, offering a range of tools including the novel
WorldCat Identities. This is based on author profiles and provides indicators
relating to the availability of their books in library catalogs. Here, we
investigate this new tool to identify its strengths and weaknesses based on a
sample of Bibliometrics and Scientometrics authors. We review the problems that
this entails and compare Library Catalog Analysis indicators with Google
Scholar and Web of Science citations. The results show that WorldCat Identities
can be a useful tool for book impact assessment but the value of its data is
undermined by the provision of massive collections of ebooks to academic
libraries.
