Research On Scientific Output, Collaboration And Impact Of Library And Information Science: A Scientometric Analysis

Scientometrics relates to the measurement and evaluation of knowledge withrespect to a particular domain. Practically, scientometrics is a frequently used bibliometrictechnique that is based on the measurement of the impact of publications. It proves to be aprominent research field for decades in Library and Information Science (LIS) and itspresence seems to be escalating rapidly in the contemporary LIS field. Through thecomprehensive use of various scientometrics and social network analysis methods and tools,innovations of this thesis are as following:(1) The thesis systemically revealed thecharacteristics of scientific output, collaboration pattern and impact of LIS in recent10years within an international perspective;(2) A new modified author activityindex(NMAAI1,2,3) was introduced to measure the author’s research performance incomparison to world research performance, scientific output and collaboration pattern withsocial network analysis on Asian region/countries;(3) The collaboration pattern, structureand trends of Chinese leading LIS groups was analyzed within co-authorship andco-citation methods. The main research contents are as follows:At first, scientometric study was carried out to investigate research output andscholarly impact of library professionals for the period of ten years from2003-2012. Thestudy covers subject growth, gaps, trends and analysis. It reveals that the researchers in LISdomain preferred to do their research independently rather than in a group. Singleauthorship pattern was more popular among researchers than multiple authorship patterns.Overall, it is evident that IT-based theories and application played a pivotal role to generate maximum research in librarianship and most cited articles are correlated with thesekeywords too. The maximum number of publications was carried out by universities ratherthan non-academic institutions.Further, we have explored the quantitative analysis, growth rates and trends in LIS,through global publications in (LIS) produced by library science professionals. This studycarries out significant results by using different scientometric techniques, visualizing andmapping software. Results figured out that a significant growth rate (11.37%) was found in2009. Self-citation tendencies have been increasing, with an average rate of38.56%. Chinahas contributed remarkably in terms of collaborative publications.Afterwards, scientometric techniques and social network analysis were used tofigure out the capabilities and collaborative activities of Asian LIS researchers on authorlevel, institutional level and country level. Co-author analysis software was used to analyzethe contributions of authors’ influence by using new modify author activity Index(NMAAI1,2,3), which is something valuable to consider. We have introduced a newauthor activity index to measure to evaluate the author research activities according tohis\her contribution and interpretation through modified author activity index may beconcluded that is a good measurement tool. The underlying results revealed that LIS“Institutions Collaboration Pattern” did not show strong collaboration with Asian countries/region. Intra-continent and Inter-continent collaboration have not been in much harmony atauthor, institutional and country level of collaborations. Overall, trends show that Asianregion/countries have not shown any keen interest to produce collaborative LIS publications. Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, India Iran, Israel and Turkey are producingample of LIS papers but not as much triumphant as other countries of the World. Apartfrom Asia, USA and UK are the significant collaborators with Asian countries.At the end, a detalied study was conducted to examine the current status andscientific collaboration analysis of (LIS) research in China’ s prospectus by focusing onEnglish research contributions of Chinese LIS scholars. Co-authorship analysis andco-citation analysis were used. Chinese research community is engaged to upgarde theircross-national collaboration, establish their existence in international literature and establishcolleague relationship with foreigner researchers. USA, UK, and Belgium are thecounterpart of international collaborative papers. Chinese institutions have imminent profand scholars in LIS field who are engaged to incorporate international-oriented scholarlyresearches (48.04%) all over the world. Chinese researchers have enough knowledge toconduct research being single author (26.24%) and have strong internal academic relatedcommunication between senior to junior level researchers. The Chinese LIS researchcommunity has not paid much attention to conduct research on inter-institutional level(7.20%) and on inter-regional level (6.73%). Wuhan University, City University HongKong, and Chinese Academy of Sciences were the leading institutions in producing LISpublications. Chinese immigrant scholars played a vital role in LIS China’s internationalscientific collaboration.