Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Abstract
The objective of this study was to carry out a citation analysis of doctoral theses submitted to the department of Animal science, University of Ibadan, Nigeria, with a view to finding possible relationships between citing, cited articles and authors (doctoral students). The research design used was the descriptive survey with the research elements for the study being the theses submitted for the award of doctoral degrees during the period 2000-2007. Frequency and percentage distributions (presented in charts, tables, and graphs) and measures of central tendency were used to analyse data. Findings showed that journals, books and conference papers ranked the first three, journals were the most utilized reference materials in the doctoral theses. Journal of Animal Science, Journal of Nutrition, Poultry Science, and Animal Feed Science and Technology journals were the most utilized journals being among the first five journals. Also, conference papers were the most recent materials while book was the oldest cited material and Animal Biochemistry and Nutrition was the most researched in the PhD theses. Findings also showed that all animal science disciplines cite journals extensively but citations were highest in the animal nutrition and biochemistry sub-field. Also, zero citation was recorded to web resources in the sub-field of monogastric nutrition, animal products and meat science and poultry nutrition. Other reference materials display a reasonable level of variability in their citation patterns. Findings from this study could serve as a user study with implications for both collection development and user services design in libraries. This study also has serious implications on calling for the construction of citation indexes that will be web based at different levels especially institutional level being narrowed down to departmental level to ease citation practices of students, the academia and researchers. Future studies could focus on ascertaining the implications of collection of reference materials to project and article referencing, instruction in classes and outreach.