The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at wwwemeraldinsightcom/0143-5124htm LM 35,3 134 Received 8 May 2013 Revised 10 June 2013 Accepted 19 June 2013 Publication trends in library and information science A bibliometric analysis of Library Management journal KP Singh and Harish Chander Department of Library and Information Science, University of Delhi, Delhi, India Abstract Purpose The purpose of the study is to explore the publication trends of the scholarly journal Library Management, and highlight its various important aspects Design/methodology/approach The paper presents results of bibliometric analysis of 336 articles which were published during the period 2006-2012, in the Library Management journal of Emerald Findings The results indicate that the majority of the contributions by single authors and most cited documents are journal articles The study highlights the chronological distribution of articles, authorship pattern, geographical distribution of authors, institutions wise distribution, citation pattern and length of articles Originality/value As yet there have been no such studies conducted that investigate the various aspects of Library Management journal It evaluates the publication trends of the journal and has important implications for scholars and researchers Keywords Library management, Citation analysis, Authorship pattern, Bibliometric studies, Publication trends, LIS Paper type Research paper Library Management Vol 35 No 3, 2014 pp 134-149 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0143-5124 DOI 101108/LM-05-2013-0039 Introduction Research has become vital activity in every field of knowledge Bibliometric is an emerging thrust area of research in different branches of human knowledge since its inception It has now become well established part of information research and a quantitative approach to the description of documents (Chaurasia, 2008) and examination of services is gaining ground both in research and practice Bibliometrics known earlier by many names from Librametry to Statistical Bibliography, the present term was coined by the Alan Pritchyard in 1969 to study quantitatively the communication pattern of published literature in a given field The Online Dictionary of Library and Information Science defines Bibliometrics as The use of mathematical and statistical methods to study and identify patterns in the usage of materials and services within a library or to analyse the historical development of specific body of literature, especially its authorship, publication and use (ODLIS, 2012) Bibliometrics has emerged as handy tool to study collection evaluation and building, ranking of journals, identification of core literature, to know the structure of literature, to know the prolific authors to observe the obsolence of literature, to study user behaviour and forecast their further needs (Satija, 2004) It has become a generic term for range of approaches directed to quantify output levels, collaboration patterns
and impact characteristics of scientific research The advantage of Bibliometric data on research document is that they have great informative value and systematic comparison of scientific institutions, countries and regions across, range as scientific fields Trends in library and information science Source journal The study based on Library Management, an online international journal in the field of library and information science of Emerald The journal started publishing online since 1979 As information services become more complex in nature and more technologically sophisticated, information professionals need to keep pace with innovations and thinking in the field to offer the most professional service with the resources they have The journal reflects the latest research undertaken in academic, government and corporate institutions by reporting contemporary thoughts, whilst also exploring practical implications for those involved in teaching and practice Library Management is abstracted and indexed in Current Awareness Abstracts, Education Full Text, Emerald Management Reviews, Information Science and Technology Abstracts, INSPEC, The Informed Librarian, Library and Information Science Abstracts, Library and Information Science Full Text, andscopus (Emeraldinsight, 2012) 135 Reviewed studies Jena et al (2012) in a study regarding the bibliographical distribution of citations, found that the majority of citations are from journals, followed by web resources and books The study further reveals that the average length of articles is 13,017 pages and the scattering of contributors is limited within a few countries Jayaraman et al (2012) carried out study by analyzing 312 articles and 4,949 references from year 1997-2011 of the Annals of Library and Information Studies published by NISCAIR (National Institute of Scientific Communication and Information Resources), Delhi It covers authorship pattern, type of citations etc Oyewusi (2012) analyse the content of the Nigerian School Library Journal (NSLJ) from 1979-2010 The study revealed that the level of collaboration among the authors was low (167 per cent) while single authors were many (833 per cent) and most articles used the survey research design followed by historical strategies, literature review and case studies Sethi and Panda (2012) in their study explore the publication trends of scholarly journal articles of two core Library and Information Science (LIS) journals by analysis of 1,000 research papers The study examines the content of journals, including growth of literature, authorship pattern, geographical distribution of authors, citation pattern length of articles and most cited authors Hussain et al (2011) conducted a bibliometric study of 578 articles were published during 2000-2010 in the Electronic Library Journal It covers year wise distribution of articles, category-wise classification of papers, subject wise distribution, authorship pattern and institutions wise distribution of contributions Singh et al (2011) carried out a study to assess the trends of the publication patterns in DESIDOC Bulletin of Information Technology (1992-2002) The study reveals that 6690 per cent articles published by single authors and 8828 per cent were contributed from India Narang and Kumar (2010) analysed 4,798 citations appended to 400 articles in five volumes 34 (2003)- 38 (2007) of the Indian Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics Results indicate that a decrease in the number of contributions in successive volumes
LM 35,3 136 and predominance of double authorship Patil (2010) examined the 249 articles published in Herald of Library Science during the period 1995-2005 He stated that maximum articles published by single authors 174 (6988 per cent) Chaurasia (2008) showed trend growth in contributions and average number of publication is 214 per volume Majority of the authors contributed their papers jointly and majority of them cited journals (5015 per cent) and books (1996 per cent) Patra et al (2006) analysed the growth pattern, core journals and authors distribution in the field of bibliometric using data from Library and Information Science Abstracts (LISA) and found that growth of literature does not show any definite pattern Ushadevi (1997) analysed 369 articles of Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics from (1983-1992) The largest contributions belong to Government Institutions and major contributors were from Indian origin Objectives of the study To examine the authorship pattern of the contributions To examine the volume-wise distribution of contributions and to find the average number of citations per volumes To examine the average length of articles and average number of citations per contribution in the journal To study the types and number of publications cited in the contributions of the journal To know the institutions wise distribution of the contributions and geographical distribution of the publications To find out statistics of distribution of contributions in various field of LIS Methodology A total number of 37 issues of the seven volumes ie 27-33 of the source journal Library Management during the period of 2006-2012 has been selected for the study Data on papers published in the Journal were collected from downloaded articles obtained from Emerald (wwwemeraldinsightcom) The details regarding each published article such as numbers of contributions, numbers of authors, numbers of references, length of pages, geographical distribution, etc have examined and analysed for making observations Analysis and discussions Chronological distribution of articles Table I gives the detail regarding volume-wise distribution of 336 articles published from year 2006-2012 Maximum numbers of articles ie 52 (1548 per cent) published in volume 27 during the year 2006 and the minimum articles are in volumes 32 and 33 as the same figure ie 45 during the years 2011 and 2012 (see Figure 1) Authorship pattern Tables II and III analyse the authorship pattern of the journal articles Single authored papers are top in the list having 190 (5655 per cent) followed by the two authored papers 98 (2917 per cent), three authored papers 31 (922 per cent) and more than three authors papers 17 (506 per cent) during the seven years (see Figure 2)
Geographical distribution of contributions Table IV attempts to give overview of the articles from different countries The USA dominates the all other countries having 59 (1756 per cent) contributions, followed by the Australia 46 (1369 per cent), UK 41(1220 per cent), and China 23 (685 per cent) articles respectively The contributions from India during the last seven years are only ten (297 per cent) The 20 (595 per cent) papers are contributed by the multiple countries and 17 countries contributed with one paper each (see Figure 3) Total 36 countries published their papers except multiple countries during the last seven years The year wise analysis of the geographic distributions (see Table V) presents the ranking of the major contributed countries Table V shows that USA contributed most of articles during the year 2006 (15) of the total articles (59), while Australia in 2008 (nine), the UK and China in 2007 such as ten and seven respectively Canada and India Trends in library and information science 137 Year Vol no No of issues No of articles (%) 2006 27 6 52 1548 2007 28 5 49 1458 2008 29 5 50 1488 2009 30 5 47 1399 2010 31 6 48 1429 2011 32 5 45 1339 2012 33 5 45 1339 Total 7 vols 37 336 100 Table I Chronological distribution of articles Figure 1 Distribution of articles No of authors No of articles (%) Single 190 5655 Two 98 2917 Three 31 922 More than three 17 506 Total 336 100 Table II Authorship pattern of contributions
LM 35,3 138 are the consistent average contributors of the given years as compared to Nigeria, Finland and South Africa It is also clear from the data that these major countries contributed 246 (73 per cent) articles out of the total produced literature in given period The maximum contributions during the years 2006 and 2007 each 40 (1190 per cent) and minimum in the year 2012 (26) Institution wise distribution Table VI depicts the institution wise distribution of articles Out of 336 contributions overwhelming majority with the highest numbers, ie 267 (7946 per cent) articles have been contributed by universities, followed by colleges/institutes 26 (773 per cent), national libraries eight (238 per cent), special libraries seven (208 per cent) and government departments six (179 per cent) (see Figure 4) Mapping and distribution of major topics Table VII lists the key topics of papers published in the journal These topics were scanned using articles titles and keywords The large number of paper under the study devoted to the topics such as Library Management 39 (1161 per cent), Academic Libraries 34 (1012 per cent), Change Management 32 (952 per cent) and Information Services 31 (923 per cent) Moreover, Human Resource Management and Professional Development 24 (714 per cent) with each, ICT 18 (536 per cent), Knowledge Management 17 (506 per cent), University Libraries 15 (446 per cent) Vol no Single author (%) Two authors (%) Three authors (%) More than three authors (%) Table III Authorship pattern of contributions (volume-wise) 27 34 1012 10 298 6 179 2 060 28 39 1161 8 238 2 060 0 00 29 28 833 15 446 5 148 2 060 30 24 714 17 506 3 089 3 089 31 23 685 19 565 3 089 3 089 32 25 744 15 447 3 089 2 060 33 17 506 14 417 9 268 5 148 7 vol 190 5655 98 2917 31 922 17 506 Figure 2 Authorship pattern
Name of country No of contributions/articles Percentage The USA 59 1756 Australia 46 1369 The UK 41 1220 China 23 685 Canada 18 536 Hong Kong 15 446 Greece 11 327 India 10 297 Nigeria 8 238 Finland 8 238 South Africa 7 208 Singapore 6 179 Ireland 4 119 Italy 4 119 Pakistan 4 119 Denmark 3 089 Iran 3 089 Malaysia 3 089 New Zealand 3 089 Poland 3 089 Spain 3 089 Taiwan 3 089 Belgium 2 060 Croatia 2 060 Ghana 2 060 The Netherlands 2 060 Sweden 2 060 Turkey 2 060 Uganda 2 060 Multiple countries 20 595 Others (one each) 17 506 Total 336 100 Trends in library and information science 139 Table IV Geographical distribution of contributors Figure 3 Geographical distribution of contributions
LM 35,3 140 Table V Major contributors geographical distribution No of contributions (year wise) Rank Country 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Total (%) 1 USA 15 4 6 8 7 10 9 59 2398 2 Australia 5 7 9 8 7 6 4 46 1870 3 UK 6 10 9 4 5 5 2 41 1667 4 China 4 7 1 5 1 2 3 23 925 5 Canada 3 3 3 2 2 2 3 18 731 6 Hong Kong 1 4 3 2 2 3 15 610 7 Greece 3 3 2 1 2 11 447 8 India 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 10 407 9 Nigeria 2 3 2 1 8 325 9 Finland 1 1 1 3 2 8 325 10 South Africa 2 5 7 285 Total 40 40 37 35 34 34 26 246 % 1190 1190 1101 1042 1012 1012 773 73
Contributed by No of contributions (%) Universities 267 7946 Colleges/Institutes 26 773 National Libraries 8 238 Special Libraries 7 208 Government Departments 6 179 Library Associations 4 119 Public Libraries 4 119 Information/Documentation Centers 2 060 Miscellaneous 12 358 Total 336 100 Trends in library and information science 141 Table VI Institution wise distribution of contributions Figure 4 Institution wise contributions and Collection Management 13 (387 per cent) are also among the most common topics (see Figure 5), covered by the various authors of Library Management Journal The data related to the subject-wise distributions of articles are shown in Table VII which highlights contributions over the different period It shows the subject trends and analysis of the subject covered during the given years The study found that variety of topics has been covered in the journal The highest number of articles consists of library management, academic libraries, change management, and information services respectively The majority of the articles are on library management and its associated topics But study also discovers a sizeable number of articles on the new emerging topics such as information literacy, social networking/web 20 technologies, e-resources and digital libraries
LM 35,3 142 Table VII Mapping and distribution of topics No of contributions Year wise distribution Subject field 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Total (%) Library Management 3 8 4 7 10 4 3 39 1161 Academic Libraries 3 3 9 2 3 5 9 34 1012 Change Management 7 4 5 3 5 4 4 32 952 Information Services 10 4 9 3 1 2 2 31 923 Professional Development 5 3 4 3 4 2 3 24 714 HRM in Libraries 4 3 2 4 4 5 2 24 714 Information and Communication Technology 1 3 2 4 5 2 1 18 536 Knowledge Management 5 3 2 1 4 1 1 17 506 University Libraries 2 2 1 1 2 3 4 15 446 Collection Management 1 1 3 3 2 3 13 387 Public Libraries 2 3 3 1 1 2 2 13 387 Digital Libraries 1 3 3 2 1 2 12 357 Leadership Competence 3 1 3 1 2 1 11 327 E-Resources 1 1 2 1 3 2 10 298 Strategic Management 2 2 3 1 2 10 298 Marketing 2 2 1 2 3 9 268 Information Literacy 1 1 1 1 1 3 8 238 Social Networking/Web20 1 2 1 1 2 7 208 Others 2 4 1 1 1 9 268
Trends in library and information science 143 Figure 5 Mapping of major topics Distributions of citations Table VIII indicates that five volumes (except vols 28 and 29) have the 14 articles without citations The maximum numbers of articles 6 without citations are in vol 27 Table IX reveals that seven volumes have 6,611 citations appended to the 336 articles Out of total 6,611 citations vol 29 has the highest numbers ie 1,205(1822 per cent), next on the list is vol 31 with second highest numbers ie 1,099 (1662 per cent) and vol 28 has the lowest numbers of citations ie 763 (1155 per cent) (see Figure 6) Types of publications cited (volume-wise) Authors cite different types of documents in their articles according to their information needs The citations comprise articles from journals, books, web Year Vol no No of articles 2006 27 6 2007 28 3 2008 29 2009 30 2010 31 1 2011 32 1 2012 33 3 Total 7 vols 14 Table VIII Articles without citations Vol No No of contributions No of citations (%) 27 52 919 1390 28 49 763 1155 29 50 1,205 1822 30 47 950 1437 31 48 1,099 1662 32 45 882 1334 33 45 793 1200 7 vols 336 6,611 100 Table IX Distribution of average citations per contribution in each volume
LM 35,3 144 Figure 6 Distribution of citations documents, symposia/conference proceedings, theses and dissertations, etc Table X represents the volume wise analysis of publications cited by authors From the given description, it is observed that authors mostly cite to journal articles that is 3,214 (4862 per cent) citations This is due to the fact that journals are primary channel of nascent thoughts This followed by the other major categories such as online/web documents 1,400 (2118 per cent) and books with 1,157(1750 per cent) citations The remaining cited documents are chapters in edited books 286 (433 per cent), seminar/conferences 178 (269 per cent), Thesis/Dissertation 57 (086 per cent) and miscellaneous 299 (452 per cent) including reports, lectures, speeches, notes etc It highlights that authors are consulting journals, online documents and books more and more for writing, studying and presenting their research results (see Figure 7) Classification of papers-category wise Table XI focuses that the category wise classification of the papers The analysis indicates that the maximum number of articles published under the category of research papers ie 135 (4018 per cent), whereas 107 (3185 per cent) articles published under the case study category There were small number of articles published under the categories General Review and Viewpoint 33 (982 per cent) respectively (see Figure 8) Pagination pattern An analysis of pagination pattern of papers is addressed in Table XII Table XII provides page count data that majority of papers 142 (4226 per cent) have length between six to ten pages followed by 139 (4137 per cent) articles with page length of 11-15 pages, 35 (1042 per cent) articles with 16-20 pages and remaining 11 (327 per cent) with on to five and seven (208 per cent) articles have the length of 21-25 pages (see Figure 9) Major findings of the study The key qualitative and quantitative findings of the study are as: The Library Management journal which has been published online since 1979 is a well known and popular journal in the field of library and information studies
Magazines/ newsletter Misc Total Theses/ dissertations Seminars/ conferences Chapters in edited books Online/web documents Books Vol no Journals 27 457 176 169 54 16 01 15 31 919 28 357 161 162 36 09 5 2 31 763 29 561 243 212 68 40 13 68 1,205 30 474 232 122 41 22 14 2 43 950 31 520 235 200 45 43 6 50 1,099 32 421 200 159 24 24 5 1 48 882 33 424 153 133 18 24 13 28 793 7 vols 3,214 1,400 1,157 286 178 57 20 299 6,611 (%) 4862 2118 1750 433 269 086 030 452 100 Trends in library and information science 145 Table X Type of documents cited (volume-wise)
LM 35,3 146 Figure 7 Types of documents cited Categories No of articles (%) Table XI Category wise classification of papers Research Papers 135 4018 Case Studies 107 3185 General Reviews 33 982 Viewpoints 33 982 Conceptual Papers 14 417 Literature Reviews 12 356 Technical Papers 2 060 Total 336 100 Figure 8 Classification of papers During the period of (2006-2012) a substantial number of articles ie 336 have been covered which shows that the journal is quite renowned The study finds that this journal have the contributions of the articles from major leading countries such as the USA, the UK, Australia, China, India, Canada, etc hence, it is evidence that the journal is the quite popular and highly in demand by the researchers and authors to publish the articles on the topic in LM
The study also explore that the journal is devoted for having the articles on Library Management, but during the recent years it also covers emerging new topics such as digital libraries, web 20, information literacy, e-resources etc which shows that the journal is expanding horizontally and vertically Authorship pattern reveals that majority of the contributions/ articles by single authors 90 (5655 per cent) and 98 (2917 per cent) papers authored by two authors The study finds that the USA is the most productive country, contributing 59 (1756 per cent) papers and followed by Australia 46 (1369 per cent) and the UK 41 (1220 per cent) The study finds that most cited documents are journals articles 3214 (4862 per cent) This is due to fact that research findings are reported in journals and researchers interpret and extent the previous research results Addressing the participation in literature production, universities 267 (7946 per cent) are the major contributors After scanning the papers of this journal, the study finds that it covered 39, 34 and 32 such as Library Management, Academic Libraries and Change Management as the most frequent topics Category wise classification of articles reveals that highest numbers of papers were under the categories of Research papers 135 (4018 per cent) and Case studies 107 (3185 per cent) Pagination analysis depicts that majority of articles 142 (4226 per cent) and 139 (4137 per cent) have the length between six and ten pages and 11-15 pages Trends in library and information science 147 No of pages 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Total (%) 1-5 3 4 1 3 11 327 6-10 26 25 11 24 15 13 28 142 4226 11-15 16 15 25 21 28 24 10 139 4137 16-20 6 5 9 2 3 7 3 35 1042 21-25 1 4 1 1 07 208 26-30 1 1 02 060 Total 52 49 50 47 48 45 45 336 100 Table XII Length of articles Figure 9 Length of articles
LM 35,3 148 The particulars of subject-wise distributions of articles are shown in Table XII which highlights contributions over different period It shows the subject trends and analyses the subject covered during the given years The journal Library Management most of the topics contributed on management related topics such as library management, human resource management, strategic management, professional development, knowledge management, marketing etc otherwise it also covered the wide range of other topics covering from academic libraries to Library 20 Conclusion The present study attempted to analyse the research productivity in area of Library and Information Science which is based on an important international online journal ie Library Management (Emerald) for the period of 2006-2012 The journal is rich in its information contents covering various aspects of LIS Most of the papers related to library management, knowledge management, information services, human resource management and professional development While further study is needed, the authors hope for the productive research in LIS around the world References Chaurasia, KK (2008), Bibliometric analysis of Annals of Library and Information Studies (2002-2006), 9th Malibnet Annual National Convention, February 2008, New Delhi Emeraldinsight (2012), Library Management, available at: wwwemeraldinsightcom/products/ journals/journalshtm?id¼lm (accessed 12 November 2012) Hussain, A, Fatima, N and Kumar, D (2011), Bibliometric analysis of The Electronic Library journal (2000-2010), Webology, Vol 8 No 1, available at: wwwwebologyorg/2011/v8n1/ 987html (accessed 3 October 2012) Jayaraman, S, Krishnaswamy, N and Subramanian, B (2012), A bibliometric study of publications by annals of library information studies 1997-2011, International Journal of Librarianship and Administration, Vol 3 No 2, pp 95-107 Jena, KL, Swain, DK and Sahu, SB (2012), Scholarly communication of The Electronic Library from 2003-2009: a bibliometric study, The Electronic Library, Vol 30 No 1, pp 103-119, available at: http://dxdoiorg/101108/02640471211204097 (accessed 13 October 2012) Narang, A and Kumar, A (2010), A bibliometric study of Indian Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics, SRELS Journal of Information Management, Vol 47 No 1, pp 31-39 ODLIS (2012), Bibliometric, available at: wwwabc-cliocom/odlis/odlis_baspx (accessed 29 September 2012) Oyewusi, FO (2012), School library research in Nigeria: content analysis of Nigerian School Library Journal 1979-2010, Library Review, Vol 61 No 3, pp 215-230, available at: http:// dxdoiorg/101108/00242531211259337 (accessed 28 September 2012) Patil, SB (2010), Herald of library science: a bibliometric study, SRELS Journal of Information Management, Vol 47 No 3, pp 351-358 Patra, SK, Bhattacharya, P and Verma, N (2006), Bibliometric study of literature on bibliometrics, DESIDOC Bulletin of Information Technology, Vol 26 No 1, pp 27-32 Satija, MP (2004), Dictionary of Knowledge Organization, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar
Sethi, BB and Panda, KC (2012), Growth and nature of international LIS research: an analysis of two journals, The International Information and Library Review, Vol 44 No 2, pp 86-99, available at: wwwsciencedirectcom/science/article/pii/s105723171 02 (accessed 7 October 2012) Singh, KP, Jain, A and Babbar, P (2011), DESIDOC Bulletin of information technology: a bibliometric study, SRELS Journal of Information Management, Vol 48 No 1, pp 57-68 Ushadevi, SP (1997), Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics: a bibliometric study, in Devarajan, G (Ed), Bibliometric Studies, ESS ESS Publications, New Delhi, pp 120-129 Trends in library and information science 149 About the authors Dr KP Singh is a well-known Indian LIS professional and a prolific contributor to national and international platforms in the major areas of ICT in libraries, knowledge management, design and development of online directories and E-content management Presently working as a Senior Assistant Professor in the Department of Library and Information Science in the University of Delhi, Delhi for the past 14 years and as a Principal Investigator of two Major Research Projects of DRDO and UGC, Dr Singh did his Master s in Agricultural Sciences and Library and Information Science and MPhil and PhD in Library and Information Science He is the recipient of the UGC-JRF/NET, ICAR-JRF, DRDO-JRF and SATKAL Young Librarian Award 2010 Dr Singh has written eight books/edited works, about 70 research publications, guided more than 80 research projects to MLIS, MPhil students and completed one Major Research Project Dr KP Singh is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: singhkp_1972@yahoocoin Harish Chander is working as a Junior Research Fellow (UGC) and pursuing MPhil (Library and Information Science) from Department of Library and Information Science, University of Delhi Mr Chander did his MLIS and from GNDU Amritsar He has also done PGDCA and worked as Project Fellow on UGC Major Research Project To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsightcom Or visit our web site for further details: wwwemeraldinsightcom/reprints