A Bibliometric Study of Chinese Librarianship: An International Electronic Journal,

A Bibliometric Study of Chinese Librarianship: An International Electronic Journal, 1997-2016 Manoj Kumar Verma Mizoram University, Aizawl India manojdlis@mzu.edu.in Krishna Brahma Mizoram University, Aizawl India krishnabrahma255@gmail.com ABSTRACT: The study analyzed the research articles published in Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal (CLIEJ) for a period of 20 years (1997-2016) and discussed on issues such as authorship patterns, reference patterns, geographical distribution, most productive countries, type of institutions, length of articles, and degree of author collaboration. The data were collected from the CLIEJ website and analyzed for interpretation. The findings revealed that collaborative articles were more than single-authored. USA contributed the highest number of publications, followed by Nigeria and India. Academic institutions are the most visible contributors. A total of 2,524 references were retrieved from 143 articles with an average of 17.65 references per article. Researchers cited singleauthored references more than collaborative authors. I. Introduction Bibliometrics is an emerging area. Its methods are an integral part of research evaluation in the field of library and information science. The term Bibliometrics was first coined by Pritchard in 1969 and defined as application of mathematics and statistical methods to books and other media of communication (Pritchard, 1969). It provides quantitative analysis of academic literature or for evaluating budgetary spending (Wikipedia, 2018). Bibliometric methods are commonly used to explore the impact of their field, the impact of a set of researchers, or the impact of a particular paper (Wikipedia, 2018). Research articles submitted for publication in scholarly journals (also called peer-reviewed, academic, refereed or professional journals) are heavily reviewed and revised before being accepted. The present study is to evaluate the research articles published in Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal (CLIEJ) in aspects such as article contribution by country, author distribution, authorship patterns, degree of author collaboration, and reference patterns. 43

II. Literature Review Kumar and Verma (2017) analyzed the citation patterns of Vikalpa: The Journal for Decision Makers for the period of 2008-2012 and found that authors were mainly focused on traditional forms of reading materials for their research work. They argued that contradictory to the fact that information is available in digital form, researchers preferred print materials. Singh and Mishra (2013) analyzed 158 articles published in IASLIC Bulletin in 2004-2010 and concluded that most articles were single-authored, 6 pages in length and averaged with 1-10 citations. Academic institutions contributed most papers (68.87%). Kumar, Mondol, and Verma (2013) analyzed the citations in Journal of Creative Behavior (JCB). They discussed about the Bradford s law and their application in the field of citation and bibliometric analysis and observed that journals were the main source of information in the field of creativity, psychology, and education, followed by monograph and other forms of reading materials. Ambika, Alwarammal, and Chinnadurai (2013) carried out a bibliometric study of Annals of Library and Information Studies, in which 283 articles from 2002 to 2011 were analyzed. Their findings revealed that most authors preferred joint papers and that universities contributed most papers. Hussain, Fatima, and Kumar (2011) conducted a bibliometric analysis of 578 articles in the Electronic Library journal (2000-2010) and revealed that most articles were single-authored. Thanuskodi (2011) analyzed 138 articles published in Library Herald Journal in the period of 2006-2010 and found that most articles were written by single authors (52.17%), followed by joint authors (47.83%). The papers averaged 6-10 pages in length. Universities contributed 27.54% of papers. Journals were cited most (32.42%). Patil (2010) conducted a bibliometric study on Herald of Library Science in the aspects of authorship patterns, degree of collaboration, and geographical distribution of papers and found that most articles were written by single authors and that the degree of collaboration was 0.30. Mukherjee (2009) conducted a similar bibliometric study on the Journal of American Society for Information Science and Technology from 2000 to 2007, examining authorship patterns, nature of collaboration, geographic distribution of articles, nature of cited references, and prolific authors. 44

III. Objectives of the Study The objectives of the study are as follows: Identify article contributions and pattern of growth of the journal during the period of 1997-2016; Analyze the issue distribution and authorship patterns of articles; Identify and rank distribution of articles by type of institutions; Find out the most productive countries; Identify the range and page length of articles published in journal; Determine the degree of collaboration of the articles; Identify the reference distribution and authorship pattern of references of journals articles. IV. Scope of the Study The present study covers the research articles published in Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal (CLIEJ). The study is limited to a period of 20 years, 1997-2016 and further limited to only research articles published in CLIEJ, excluding all other types of contents as depicted in Figure 2 of this paper. V. Research Methodology The data for the study were downloaded from the CLIEJ website (http://www.iclc.us/cliej) for 20 years (1997-2016) during the first week of November 2017. The collected data were tabulated and analyzed to meet the above-mentioned objectives. There are a total of 40 issues (Issue no. 3 to 42), out of which 143 research articles were traced from 33 issues as other issues did not contain research articles and thus excluded from the study. VI. Data Analysis 1. Distribution of Articles by Year and Issue Table 1 and Figure 1 show the research article distribution in Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal (CLIEJ) by year and issue. A total number of 143 articles were recorded from 40 issues with an average of 3.57 articles per issue. 2013 and 2014 were the years with the highest number of articles (17 articles each year or 8.5 articles each issue), followed by 2012 (14 articles) and 2010 (13 articles). 45

Sl. No. Year Table 1. Research Article Distribution by Year and Issue Distribution of Articles by Year and Issue Issue No. Publications in Each Issue Total Publications & (%) Average Articles per Issue 1 1997 Issue 3 2 3 Issue 4 1 (2.09%) 1.5 2 1998 Issue 5 1 2 Issue 6 1 (1.39%) 1 3 1999 Issue 7 0 1 Issue 8 1 (0.69%) 0.5 4 2000 Issue 9 0 Issue 10 0 0 0 5 2001 Issue 11 0 1 Issue 12 1 (0.69%) 0.5 6 Issue 13 1 3 2002 Issue 14 2 (2.09%) 1.5 7 2003 Issue 15 0 Issue 16 0 0 0 8 Issue 17 2 4 2004 Issue 18 2 (2.79%) 2 9 2005 Issue 19 5 6 Issue 20 1 (4.19%) 3 10 2006 Issue 21 2 9 Issue 22 7 (6.29%) 4.5 11 2007 Issue 23 6 12 Issue 24 6 (8.39%) 6 12 2008 Issue 25 5 5 Issue 26 0 (3.49%) 2.5 13 2009 Issue 27 6 9 Issue 28 3 (6.29%) 4.5 14 2010 Issue 29 6 13 Issue 30 7 (9.09%) 6.5 15 2011 Issue 31 6 12 Issue 32 6 (8.39%) 6 16 2012 Issue 33 8 14 Issue 34 6 (9.79%) 7 17 2013 Issue 35 8 17 Issue 36 9 (11.88%) 8.5 18 2014 Issue 37 8 17 Issue 38 9 (11.88%) 8.5 19 2015 Issue 39 7 11 Issue 40 4 (7.69%) 5.5 20 2016 Issue 41 2 4 Issue 42 2 (2.79%) 2 Total 40 143 143 3.57 46

20 15 10 5 0 17 17 12 13 14 12 11 9 9 6 3 0 0 2 0 1 0 0 0 1 3 4 5 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Figure 1. Research Article Distribution by Year 2. hip Patterns of Research Articles by Year and Issue Table 2 shows the authorship patterns of research articles by year and issue. Singled-authored (65) was most preferred, followed by two-authored (55) and three authored (17). 45.45% of the authors have contributed articles individually whereas 54.54% contributed articles as joint collaborative work. Table 2. hip Patterns of Research Articles by Year and Issue Sl. No. Year 1 1997 2 1998 3 1999 4 2000 5 2001 6 2002 7 2003 8 2004 9 2005 10 2006 11 2007 12 2008 Issue No. Single Author Two Three Four Five Total Issue 3 2 0 0 0 0 Issue 4 1 3 Issue 5 1 0 0 0 0 Issue 6 1 2 Issue 7 0 0 0 0 0 Issue 8 1 1 Issue 9 0 0 0 0 0 Issue 10 0 0 Issue 11 0 0 0 0 0 Issue 12 1 1 Issue 13 1 0 0 0 0 Issue 14 2 3 Issue 15 0 0 0 0 0 Issue 16 0 0 Issue 17 2 0 0 0 Issue 18 1 1 4 Issue 19 3 2 0 0 0 6 Issue 20 1 Issue 21 1 1 0 0 0 Issue 22 4 3 9 Issue 23 2 4 0 0 Issue 24 3 2 1 12 Issue 25 2 2 0 1 0 Issue 26 0 5 47

13 2009 Issue 27 4 1 1 0 0 Issue 28 2 1 9 14 2010 Issue 29 2 3 1 0 Issue 30 3 3 1 13 15 2011 Issue 31 1 1 3 0 1 Issue 32 2 3 1 12 16 2012 Issue 33 1 4 2 1 0 Issue 34 4 2 14 17 2013 Issue 35 2 2 4 0 Issue 36 7 1 1 17 18 2014 Issue 37 2 5 1 0 Issue 38 3 5 1 17 19 2015 Issue 39 3 3 1 0 0 Issue 40 2 2 11 20 2016 Issue 41 0 2 0 0 Issue 42 1 1 4 Total 40 65 55 17 5 1 143 3. Degree of Author Collaboration Table 3 shows the degree of author collaboration of articles published in Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal during the period under study. It indicates the trend in patterns of single and joint authorship of the articles. The degree of collaboration among authors is the ratio of the number of collaborative articles to the total number of articles published in a journal during a certain period of time (Jeyshankar and Abu, 2014). It illustrates that the degree of author collaboration is 0.54, i.e., only 65 articles were single-authored whereas 78 articles were multiple authored. The table depicts that during 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015 & 2016, the degree of collaboration was found in high degree i.e., 0.54-1.00. The mathematical formula given by K. Subramayam was used while analyzing the degree of collaboration: DC= Nm Nm+Ns (Where, DC= Degree of Collaboration; Nm= Number of multiple authors and Ns= Number of single authors) Sl. No. Year Single- Authored Publications (Ns) Table 3. Degree of Author Collaboration Multiple-Authored Publications (Nm) Nm+Ns Degree of Collaboration DC=Nm/(Nm+Ns) 1 1997 3 0 3 0 2 1998 2 0 2 0 3 1999 1 0 1 0 48

4 2000 0 0 0 0 5 2001 1 0 1 0 6 2002 3 0 3 0 7 2003 0 0 0 0 8 2004 3 1 4 0.25 9 2005 4 2 6 0.33 10 2006 5 4 9 0.44 11 2007 5 7 12 0.58 12 2008 2 3 5 0.6 13 2009 4 5 9 0.55 14 2010 5 8 13 0.61 15 2011 3 9 12 0.75 16 2012 5 9 14 0.64 17 2013 9 8 17 0.47 18 2014 5 12 17 0.7 19 2015 5 6 11 0.54 20 2016 0 4 4 1 Total 65 78 143 0.54 4. Length of the Articles Table 4 reveals the length of articles published in Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal. Most articles were between 6-10 pages (47.55%), followed by 11-15 pages (31.46%) and 16-20 pages (11.18%). 5. Contents by Type Table 4. Length of the Articles Pages per Article No. of Articles Percent (%) 1 5 8 5.59% 6 10 68 47.55% 11 15 45 31.46% 16 20 16 11.18% 21 25 5 3.49% 26 or more 1 0.69% Total 143 100% Figure 2 illustrates different types of contents published in the 40 issues of Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal. It shows that Research Articles (143) ranked first by number, followed by News (71), Pinyin Forum (21), and Featured Articles (20). 49

CHINESE COMPUTER & INFORMATION 1 CHINA NEWS 2 BOOK REVIEWS 2 LETTERS FROM READERS 2 LC NEWS 2 CONFERENCE PRESENTATION 4 HOT TOPIC CHINESE PLACE NAMES 4 TECHNICALITY 9 CONFERENCES 11 FEATURED ARTICLE 20 PINYIN FORUM 21 NEWS RESEARCH ARTICLE 71 143 Figure 2. Publications by Type 6. Geographic Distribution of Articles and 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 Table 5 shows the geographic distribution of articles and authors. USA (45 articles and 61 authors), Nigeria (34 articles and 64 authors), and India (32 articles and 63 authors) are the top three. There are 8 joint collaborative articles among different countries. Table 5. Geographic Distribution of Articles and Sl. No. Geographic Location Single Author Two Three Four Five Total Total Articles Ra nk 1 USA 30 12 3 45 61 1 2 Nigeria 12 15 6 1 34 64 2 3 India 12 13 4 3 3 32 63 3 4 Pakistan 3 8 3 1 15 31 4 5 China 4 4 1 1 10 16 5 6 UK 1 1 2 2 6 7 Iran 1 1 2 2 6 8 Australia 2 2 2 6 9 Bangladesh 1 1 3 7 10 Fiji 1 1 1 7 11 Sri Lanka 1 1 2 7 12 Malaysia 1 1 1 7 13 Malawi 1 1 2 7 14 Taiwan 1 1 2 7 15 Turkey 1 1 2 7 16 Botswana 1 1 1 7 17 Saudi Arabia 1 1 1 7 Total 67 59 18 7 3 151 256 50

Notes: 1) If an article is written by 2 authors and both of them belong to the same country/region, there will be 1 article and 2 authors for that geographic location. 2) If the article is written by 2 author and they belong to two different countries, then each country has one article and one author. 3) There are 8 joint collaborative articles. 7. Distribution of Articles by Type of Institutions Table 6 shows the distribution of articles by type of institutions and reveals that Academic Institutions (135) lead with the highest contributions. Table 6. Distribution of Articles by Type of Institutions Sl. No. Type of Institutions Contribution 1 Academic Institutions 135 2 National Library 2 3 Research Library Consortium 1 4 Public Library 2 5 Ministry of Science, Research & Technology 2 6 Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) 1 7 Department of Atomic Energy 2 8 Department of Higher Education Commission 1 9 Others 5 Total 151 8. Contribution of Articles from India by State along with hip Patterns Table 7 shows the contribution of articles from India by state along with authorship patterns. Tamil Nadu ranked first (7 articles and 12 authors), followed by Jammu & Kashmir (5, 9) and Odisha (5, 9). There were 2 joint collaborative articles from India with other countries and 3 joint articles between Indian states. Table 7. Contribution of Articles from India by State along with hip Patterns Sl. Single Two Three Four Five Total Indian State No. Author Articles 1 Tamil Nadu 4 2 1 7 12 2 Jammu & Kashmir 2 1 2 5 9 3 Odisha 1 4 5 9 4 Uttarakhand 1 1 2 4 9 5 Karnataka 1 2 3 4 6 Punjab 1 1 2 2 7 Chandigarh 1 1 1 2 6 Uttar 8 Pradesh 1 1 2 4 9 New Delhi 1 1 1 4 10 Maharashtra 1 1 1 4 Total 12 13 4 3 3 32 63 51

9. Distribution Pattern of References Table 8 shows the distribution pattern of reference in Chinese Librarianship: an International Journal. A total of 2,524 references were retrieved from 143 articles with an average of 17.65 references per article. Of the 143 articles, more references were recorded in the year 2013 (342 references, 13.54% of the total or 20.11 references per article on average), followed by 2014 (307, 12.16% or 18.05 references per article on average) and 2007 (246, 9.74% or 20.5 references per article on average). Note that there are 7 issues without research articles. Table 8. Distribution Pattern of References Total Cumulative Average Sl. Issue No. of No. of Year References References Reference No. No. Articles References (%) (%) per Article 1 1997 Issue 3 2 7 7 7 Issue 4 1 0 (0.27%) (0.27%) 2.33 2 1998 Issue 5 1 7 11 18 Issue 6 1 4 (0.43%) (0.71%) 5.5 3 1999 Issue 7 0 N/A 25 43 Issue 8 1 25 (0.99%) (1.70%) 25 4 2000 Issue 9 0 N/A 43 0 Issue 10 0 N/A (1.70%) 0 5 2001 Issue 11 0 N/A 30 73 Issue 12 1 30 (1.18%) (2.89%) 30 6 2002 Issue 13 1 9 31 104 Issue 14 2 22 (1.22%) (4.12%) 10.33 7 2003 Issue 15 0 N/A 104 0 Issue 16 0 N/A (4.12%) 0 8 2004 Issue 17 2 24 39 143 Issue 18 2 15 (1.54%) (5.66%) 9.75 9 2005 Issue 19 5 95 105 248 Issue 20 1 10 (4.16%) (9.82%) 17.5 10 2006 Issue 21 2 35 143 391 Issue 22 7 108 (5.66%) (15.49%) 15.88 11 2007 Issue 23 6 116 246 637 Issue 24 6 130 (9.74%) (25.23%) 20.5 12 2008 Issue 25 5 90 90 727 Issue 26 0 N/A (3.56%) (28.80%) 18 13 2009 Issue 27 6 78 145 872 Issue 28 3 67 (5.74%) (34.54%) 16.11 14 2010 Issue 29 6 113 220 1,092 Issue 30 7 107 (8.71%) (43.26%) 16.92 15 2011 Issue 31 6 136 225 1,317 Issue 32 6 89 (8.91%) (52.17%) 18.75 16 2012 Issue 33 8 108 223 1540 Issue 34 6 115 (8.83%) (61.01%) 15.92 17 2013 Issue 35 8 151 342 1,882 Issue 36 9 191 (13.54%) (74.56%) 20.11 18 2014 Issue 37 8 154 307 18.05 52

19 2015 20 2016 (12.16%) 2,189 Issue 38 9 153 (86.72%) Issue 39 7 140 225 2,414 Issue 40 4 85 (8.91%) (95.64%) Issue 41 2 48 110 2,524 Issue 42 2 62 (4.35%) (100%) Total 143 2,524 (100%) 20.45 27.5 17.65 10. hip Patterns of References Table 9 shows the authorship patterns of references. A total of 1,313 references were singleauthored, followed by two authors (598) and organizations/corporations (284). It indicates that researchers are citing publications by single authors (52.02%) more than joint authors (36.72 %) or corporate authors (11.25%). Table 9. hip Pattern of References Author Type Sl. No. Year Single Author Two Three Four Five Six More than Six Corporate 1 1997 5 1 1 2 1998 6 2 1 2 3 1999 20 5 Total references (%) 7 (0.27%) 11 (0.43%) 25 (0.99%) 4 2000 0 0 5 2001 11 1 18 30 (1.18%) 6 2002 20 5 2 4 31 (1.22%) 7 2003 0 0 8 2004 29 4 3 3 39 (1.54%) 9 2005 53 22 7 1 1 21 105 (4.16%) 10 2006 66 30 14 7 1 2 23 143 (5.66%) 11 2007 111 38 25 6 1 4 61 246 (9.74%) 12 2008 47 15 7 4 17 90 (3.56%) 13 2009 77 43 17 2 1 5 145 (5.74%) 14 2010 126 51 11 2 1 1 28 220 (8.71%) 15 2011 115 68 16 7 1 18 225 (8.91%) 53

16 2012 125 52 16 8 3 1 2 16 17 2013 169 94 35 7 2 3 32 18 2014 166 77 35 9 4 1 3 12 19 2015 100 67 34 7 3 1 13 20 2016 67 23 6 3 1 10 Total 1,313 598 229 62 19 4 15 284 223 (8.83%) 342 (13.54%) 307 (12.16%) 225 (8.91%) 110 (4.35%) 2,524 (100%) VII. Findings of the Study 143 articles were retrieved from 40 issues of Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal. 2013 and 2014 were most productive years with 17 articles published respectively, followed by 2012 (14) and 2010 (13). 45.45% authors have contributed articles individually whereas 54.54% contributed as joint collaborative works. 33 issues include the topics News, followed by Featured Article (14 issues) and Technicality (9 issues). Based on geographic distribution of articles and authors, USA contributed 45 articles and 61 authors, followed by Nigeria (34 articles and 64 authors) and India (32 articles and 63 authors). As far as India is concerned, Tamil Nadu ranked first by contributing 7 articles and 12 authors, followed by Jammu & Kashmir and Odisha (5 articles and 9 authors) respectively. Academic institutions contributed 135 articles, more than any other organizations/corporations. 47.55% articles were 6-10 pages in length, followed by 11-15 pages (31.46%) and 16-20 pages (11.18%). A total of 2,524 references were retrieved from 143 research articles. The average number of references per article was 17.65. Of the 143 articles, 2013 had 342 references (13.54% of the total) and averaged 20.11 references per article, followed by 2014 with 307 references (12.16%) and averaged 18.05 references per article and 2007 with 246 references (9.74%) and averaged 20.5 references per article. The researchers cited single-authored (52.02%) references more than joint collaborative authors (36.72 %) or corporate authors (11.25%). The degree of collaboration of articles is 0.54. In other words, only 65 articles are single-authored whereas 78 articles were written by multiple authors. VIII. Conclusion Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal (CLIEJ) started publishing in 1996. It is a peer-reviewed open e-access journal in library and information science and strictly follows the 54

policy of zero tolerance of plagiarism. The present study is a bibliometric study of the research articles published in CLIEJ for a period of 20 years (1997-2016). There are other types of contents in some issues such as News, Featured article, and Technicality. The study reveals that there were more joint collaborative articles than single-authored articles and that the degree of author collaboration of articles was 0.54. USA ranked first in article contributions, followed by Nigeria and India. Academic institutions were the most prominent sector in contributing articles. Most articles were between 6-10 pages (47.55%), followed by 11-15 pages (31.46%) and 16-20 pages (11.18%). A total of 2,524 references were recorded in 143 articles with an average of 17.65 references per article. Researchers cited single-authored references more than collaborative authors. References Ambika, M.; Alwarammal, & Chinnadurai, D. (2013). Bibliometric study of Annals of Library and Information Studies. International Journal of Information Library and Society. 2(2), 29-33. Hussain, A.; Fatima, N.; & Kumar, D. (2011). Bibliometric analysis of the Electronic Library journal (2000-2010). Webology, 8(1), 2-8. URL: http://www.webology.org/2011/v8n1/a87.html Internet Chinese Librarians Club. (1995- ). Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal. URL: http://www.iclc.us/cliej Jeyshankar, R.; & Abu, K. S. (2014). Research publication trend among the scientists of Central Leather Research Institute (CLRI), Chennai, India: A scientometric study. Journal of Indian Library Association, L(3), 19-26. Kumar, S.; Mondol, A. K.; & Verma, M. K. (2013). Citation analysis of Journal of Creative Behavior: A critical study. International Journal of Information Research, 2(3), 326-338. Kumar, S., & Verma, M. K. (2017). Citation analysis of Vikalpa: A journal for decision makers - 2008-12. Librarian, 24(1), 31-41. Mukherjee, B. (2009). Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, (2000-2007): A bibliometric study. IFLA Journal, 35(4), 341-358. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/0340035209352429 Patil, S. B. (2010). Herald of Library Science: A bibliometric study. SRELS Journal of Information Management, 47(3), 351-358. doi: 10.17821/srels/2010/v47i3/44035 Pritchard, A. (1969). Statistical bibliography or bibliometrics. Journal of Documentation, 25(4), 348-349. 55

Singh, R.; & Mishra, R. (2013). Iaslic Bulletin: A bibliometric study. International Journal of Information Research, 2(4), 402-410. Thanuskodi, S. (2011). Library Herald Journal: A bibliometric study. Journal of Arts, Science & Commerce, 2(4), 68-76. URL: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0b54/5ee016aa660525bbcf4fabcf2b904d8b2fd8.pdf Wikipedia. (2018.). Bibliometrics. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/bibliometrics : Dr. Manoj Kumar Verma, Assistant Professor, Department of Library & Information Science. Mizoram University, Aizawl, India. Email: manojdlis@mzu.edu.in Krishna Brahma, Research Scholar, Department of Library & Information Science, Mizoram University, Aizawl, India. Email: krishnabrahma255@gmail.com Submitted to CLIEJ on March 12, 2018. Copyright 2018 Manoj Kumar Verma and Krishna Brahma Verma, Manoj Kumar; & Brahma, Krishna. (2018). A bibliometric study of Chinese Librarianship: An International Electronic Journal, 1997-2016. Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal, 45, 43-56. URL: http://www.iclc.us/cliej/cl45vb.pdf 56