Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Document Type
Article
Abstract
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to extract and scrutinized the scholarly literature on Information Literacy indexed in the Web of Science database.
Designed/methodology/approach: Bibliometric approach was brought in use to get the publication data on Information Literacy. A retrospective method of data was used to extract the required dataset from the Web of Science database. The dataset was retrieved on 4th January 2021 at King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Science, Saudi Arabia. The word Information Literacy has been written in inverted commas in the Basic Search option and select “Topic” in the subsequent box. Timespan box was set on All years (1900-2020) by default. A total of 4,943 items has been identified, further, the filter command “Information Science Library Science” was used in the Web of Science Category to refine and limit the results to 2,945. Further in the limit of “Document Types”, four types were, Article, Proceedings paper, Review, and Early Access types were selected. The data of publication was exported into Microsoft Excel for analysis. The data of publications, citations and growth rate was distributed by year, further documents’ types, topmost productive countries, institutions, and authors in Information Literacy were identified. The frequently used journals and most cited papers were also presented in tabular form.
Research limitation(s): The study is limited to bibliometric analysis of the scholarly literature on Information Literacy indexed in the Web of Science only and no other databases were brought in use for browsing the same terms.
Key finding(s): A total of 2,251 records were selected for data analysis, published from 1983 to 2020. The selected documents gained 22,107 citations with an average of 8.66 citations per document and 58 documents secured the h-index scale. The United States and California State University System of United States were found most contributing country and institution while the Spanish author, Maria Pinto emerged as the most prolific author.
Practical implication(s): This study identified the usage of Information Literacy and its relevant literature indexed in the Web of Science. This analysis could create awareness among the readers, potential authors, and library and information professionals in understanding the scope and coverage of this subject.
Contribution to Knowledge: This attempt will serve as a source of direction for the new investigators interested in the bibliometric examination of research productivity of various journals and scholarly databases. It will contribute to the academic world and will assist to spread the boundaries of knowledge.