We suggest that a h-type index -equal to h if you have published h papers, each of which has at least h citations -would be a useful supplement to journal impact factors.Recently, Hirsch 2 proposed what he called the "h-index" (a scientist has index h if h of his/her N papers have at least h citations each, and the other (N−h) papers have fewer than h citations each) to quantify an individual's scientific output. The idea was effectively publicized by Ball's news item in Nature, 3 and it has got positive reception in the physics community 4,5 and also in the scientometrics literature. 6 Yet, its widespread use will presumably be severely hindered by a series of technical shortcomings (e. g., the lack of common consent on disciplinary and sub-disciplinary standards, on the proper weighting of co-authorship, etc.) and, most of all, by the natural and justifiable resistance of the scientific community to use however igenious numerical indices to assess individual research performances. * An extended version of a paper published in The Scientist. 1

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