I read a book in the early 90s (https://www.librarything.com/work/184088/reviews/17020402 https://www.librarything.com/work/184088/reviews/17020402) that sugges

I read a book in the early 90s (https://www.librarything.com/work/184088/reviews/17020402 https://www.librarything.com/work/184088/reviews/17020402) that suggested that the authority of a given article, book, etc should be based on the number of times it was cited in other articles, books etc, weighted by the authority of the items that did the citing. I.e. PageRank.