To operate effectively, libraries must develop methods by which to identify literatures of high utility to their clientele and must acquire and organize these literatures in such a way as to optimize their usefulness. One such method, the bibliometric approach, is based on the assumption of certain regularities in patterns of authorship, publications, and citations of literatures. This approach was applied to a corpus of journals from the field of information science. The four techniques employed were Bradford Analysis, citation tracing, bibliographic coupling, and epidemic theory. It was concluded that it is possible to identify a minimal nucleus of key authors, a set of key journals, and the topics constituting the research front of the field. (SK/PF)