Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Document Type
Article
Abstract
In this paper, the review process was adopted by surveying the 50 research articles in the last 9 years (2006-2014) for the extraction of information about 7 sub-issues. A categorical review was done in the area of Bibliometric & Citation Studies for various issues like Single Journal studies, Subject area based publications studies, Citation or Index databases studies, Country based publications studies, Subject area based multiple journals studies, Institution-based publications studies, and Ph.D. Thesis publications studies. From the review, it was found that these studies indicate the merits and weaknesses of the journal which will be helpful for its further development. The current research will raise new science and policy questions, which lead to new strategic linkages. It is useful to identify the contribution of the authors in the particular journal and it provides a comprehensive overview of authorship in the particular subject community. This would be helpful for the journal editor to obtain the bibliometric portrait of the studied journal (JIS) and recognize its interaction with other subject disciplines. Obsolescence studies play a vital role for librarians, researchers, and managers as decision support tools for the retention of the most frequently-used literature, and are also useful for weeding out unused or less-used literature. The studies of the obsolescence of literature help the practicing library professionals in deciding which document is to be kept and which is to be discarded, in order to maintain the need-based collection in the different libraries.
The outcomes of the review process show that the bibliometric and citation analysis can be done by identifying the different parameters and collecting the data related to the same parameters from different sources according to the objective of the study. Thereafter, the collected data may be analysed using different tools and techniques with applying the different bibliometric laws and formulas. Most of the researchers used the Subarmanyam formula for testing the degree of collaboration of authors. Most of the researchers used MS-Excel software to record the data. Very few researchers used SPSS and other bibliometric analysis tools i.e. Histcite, Bibexcel, etc. Researchers studied the authorship patterns; authors’ productivity using Lotka's Law; language-wise and year-wise distribution of articles; country-wise distribution of journals; core journals in the subject area; indexing term frequency; and Bradford distribution of articles, and other parameters of bibliometric study. Very few Researchers have done the citation analysis as a part of bibliometric analysis. Most of researchers worked on content analysis but not on the further interrelationship of the parameters. Very few researchers analyzed each and every parameter of the bibliometric or citation analysis. No particular research was found regarding the effect of any bibliometric study over the academic or research community. Researchers did not identify the full coverage of the database or research publications taken for the study. No particular work was found emphasizing the interdisciplinary approach of two or more related subject areas.