Distribution of Citations in one Volume of a Journal

Citations to published scientific articles are regularly collected and processed, bringing about the impact factor and a large number of other bibliometric indicators. We interpret the set of citations collected during fixed period as a characteristic statistical distribution of citations, argue about its properties and conjecture what statistical measures represent reliably such distributions. In that way we try to contribute to determining precisely the scope and level of suitability of impact factor if accompanied with a small set of additional indicators, all derived solely from the distribution function.