Citations in Engineering Doctoral Dissertations: An Obsolescence Study

Abstract

Impact of library holdings in terms of physical access of doctoral studies in six general universities of Karnataka (Bangalore University, University of Mysore, Mangalore University, Karnatak University, Gulbarga University and Kuvempu University) have been studied based on citation appended to the PhD dissertations in engineering and technology. It’s evident that some materials in libraries become outdated as time progresses. This can be referred to as ‘obsolescence’. Obsolescence studies are one of the foremost areas of citations, bibliometrics, scientometrics, and infometrics. Citation analysis has usually been generally study the obsolescence of materials, the existence of a core of heavily used sources, and so the sort of the foremost used materials. The problem most often studied in this fashion is that the obsolescence rate of the literature in many subjects of engineering. The study was done to grasp regarding the obsolescence of engineering literature cited in 137 doctoral dissertations of engineering and technology awarded during 1961 to 2008. The study reveals that, the overall of 7467 citations of periodical articles and 2014 book citations are scattered primarily among fifteen subjects. However, citations were derived from early 1990 to after 2001, 86 % of books cited by engineers and technologists in their PhD theses were of 9-39 years recent associated an outsized share of the journal citations (68.58 %) utilised by the researchers was published 20 years back or weres older than the recent ones. It together shows that extra journals literature cited during 1971-2000 equally in books literature cited at intervals of 1961-1990.