A bibliometric assessment of global literature on “Facebook and Libraries” During 2006–14

Abstract

The present study examines 200 global publications on “Facebook and Libraries”, as covered in Scopus database during 2006–14, experiencing an annual average growth rate of 109.94% and citation impact per paper of 4.94. The global publications on “Facebook and Libraries” came from 38 countries, of which the top 11 accounted for 74.5% publication share and 80.70% citations share of global publications and citations output during 2006–14. 164 organizations and 165 authors participated in global research on “Facebook and Library” during 2006–14, of which the top 27 organizations and 27 authors contributed 32% and 28.50% publications share and 29.20% and 14.02% citation share respectively of the global output and citations. Social sciences, among subjects, contributed the largest publications share of 80.50%, followed computer science (41.0%), engineering (6.0%), medicine (5.5%), business, management and accounting (3.0%), arts & humanities (2.0%) and decision sciences (2.0%) during 2006–14. Of the total global publications, 156 appeared in 64 journals, of which the top 22 journals contributed 64.10% of the journal output. The top 20 highly cited papers registered 13 to 87 citations, and together contributed 591 citations, leading to the average citation per paper of 29.5. Based on existing studies available, the authors suggest the need to carry out a more comprehensive documentation on the existing studies on the application of Facebook to libraries, to learn about its actual usage, problems encountered and perception of users and librarians.