The 8th International Conference on Webometrics, Informetrics and Scientometrics & 13th COLLNET Meeting was held in Seoul, Korea on 23–26 October 2012. The joint meeting was organised under the auspices of the international organisation COLLNET and by the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI). The event was hosted by the Korea Chamber of Commerce & Industry.

The previous COLLNET meetings, partially organised with other events, had been held in Berlin (Germany) in 2000, New Delhi (India) in 2001, Sydney (Australia) in 2001, Beijing (China) in 2003, Roorkee (India) in 2004, Stockholm (Sweden) in 2005, Nancy (France) in 2006, New Delhi (India) in 2007, Berlin (Germany) in 2008, Dalian (China) in 2009, Mysore (India) in 2010 and Istanbul (Turkey) in 2011.

The present conference attracted about 300 participants from 19 countries. From the about 60 oral presentations we have selected eight keynote and contributed papers for publication in the present special issue of Scientometrics.

Another selection will be part of a dedicated issue of the COLLNET Journal of Scientometrics and Information Management (CJSIM, volume 7, issue 1, June 2013, http://www.tarupublications.com/journals/cjsim.htm).

The following event of this conference series will be organised under the auspices of the Estonian Research Council, Estonian Ministry of Education and Research and COLLNET and will take place in Tartu (Estonia) on 15–17 August, 2013.