Purpose. The tools for measuring the research impact are of little use in disciplines such as history and literature, which have a strong cultural, linguistic and regional component and often use channels of academic communication in languages other than English. The aim of this article is to provide a methodological contribution to the use of WoS data bases showing that it is nevertheless possible to obtain quantitative information on these disciplines through the A&HCI if a suitable strategy is used. We also wish to stress the need to improve the coverage of citation databases in humanities and the information retrieval tools that they include. The cases of Catalan and Danish literature are used as examples. Methodology. To carry out this research we have created a protocol that could be employed as a general way for the study of any other literature from citations databases. This method consists of complementing the search for subject categories of Catalan and Danish literature as topics in the A&HCI with a list of outstanding authors in each of the two languages. Findings. We identify international trends in Catalan and Danish literature research. We also determine the international visibility of the studies in comparison with those of other literatures. Research into literature in Catalan and Danish literature does not seem to be gaining ground internationally. The results are in agreement with those of previous studies, which proves the efficacy of the proposed method.