Starting with a “hidden” story concerning a world university ranking, this paper outlines the history of scientometrics under four time frames, that is, the birth of scientometrics, its application to science and engineering indicators, its application to research evaluation, and its use in “science of science policy”. The outline shows that scientometrics has changed its nature from “basic science” to “applied science”. Then, “misuse” of impact factor is presented as a bad example of research evaluation with scientometric indicators. Lastly, implication of research evaluation with “partial indicators” and responsibility of scientometricians are discussed. STS analysis of scientometrics is not only interesting but also useful to reflect the roles of STS, because both of them belong to metascience and share interests and problems.
