Library And Information Science Journals Research Articles

Women and men in library and information science scholarship: Authorship trends from 2003 to 2021

Library and information science (LIS) has long consisted of more women than men, at least in sheer numbers of library employees, but men are the primary authors of library literature. This study explores LIS literature published between 2003 and 2021 to identify if there are differences in the publishing patterns of women and men. The authors used content analysis to code the entire sample to identify overall subject trends after authors were categorized as women or men by mainly automated methods, using two R packages, genderize and ssa. The results show that there are overall inequities when compared to the profession as whole between the publishing rates of women and men in LIS, as well as differences in publication patterns by subjects and within specific journals. Shifts in subjects over the period under investigation did not increase the percentage of women publishing in the selected LIS journals. The authors conclude more research needs to be conducted to determine the cause of inequities in publishing not just among women and men, but all underrepresented voices in LIS.

Publication Output and Trends of LIS Faculty Teaching Health-Related Courses: Connecting Research, Teaching, and Practice

The publication output of Library and Information Science (LIS) faculty teaching health courses has not been analyzed. The purpose of this bibliometric analysis was to examine publication patterns of full-time LIS faculty that teach health-related courses for library science programs in the United States and Canada. Full-time LIS faculty teaching health-related courses in American Library Association (ALA)–accredited programs were identified by searching course listings, faculty profiles, and syllabi from ALA-accredited school websites and contacting deans and directors of schools. The 29 LIS faculty that were identified and met the inclusion criteria were contacted via email in September 2021 and invited to voluntarily share their curricula vitae (CVs) for analysis. A total of 16 respondents provided their CVs, representing a 55% response rate. This was supplemented by locating five more CVs publicly available online. The final sample of LIS faculty was 21, and the bibliometrics analysis was based on a total of 716 publications published from 2011 to 2021 and reported on the CVs from this group of scholars. This analysis resulted in the identification of several patterns. Journal articles were the most common publication type, followed by conference proceedings. Joint authorship patterns were more common than solo authors, highlighting the collaborative nature of research. While faculty published in a range of LIS and interdisciplinary journals, highly cited papers appeared in health specialty journals. This study represents the first step in examining the research output for this under-explored community of LIS scholars. These findings may be of interest to promotion and tenure committees, newer tenure-track faculty, and doctoral students exploring academic careers in this specialized area.

Do LIS experts select more appropriate journals than journal finders? A study about LIS journals?

The primary aim of the present study is to provide a comparative-analytical analysis of the proposed results of the Manuscript Matcher with the responses of Library and Information Science experts to select the most appropriate journal for manuscript submission. This study is a kind of applied research conducted using the survey-analytical method with a comparative approach. Data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire. The designed questionnaire was sent to 38 Library and Information Science (LIS) experts. Moreover, snowball sampling was employed to select a sample of 38 people. Twelve articles published in 12 WOSCC-indexed LIS journals were randomly selected for the Manuscript Matcher analysis. Abstracts and bibliographic data of the articles were sent to the experts. Moreover, the abstracts and titles of the 12 articles were entered in the manuscript matcher, and the results were analyzed and compared with those obtained from experts' opinions. Frequency distribution, percentage, chi-squared (χ2) test, and SPSS software (version 26) were employed for data analysis. More than 70% of the statistical population were assistant professors, 36.8% of experts had more than 40 published articles, 5% had received more than 300 citations, and 2.6% of LIS experts had an h-index above 20. Compared with 62% congruent responses of experts in the target journal selection, the Manuscript Matcher showed an inferior performance of 53% congruent responses. Furthermore, no significant relationship was found between the number of citations and the experts’ h-indexes with the rate of their congruencies in selecting the target journal. Experts were more successful than Manuscript Matcher in selecting the target journal. However, the Manuscript Matcher included comprehensive coverage of publications that can facilitate the selection of a journal for researchers due to the limited knowledge of all journal finders and the time-consuming distinct search processes.

Usage frequency and application variety of research methods in library and information science: Continuous investigation from 1991 to 2021

The present study analyzed over 26,000 research articles published between 1991 and 2021 in twenty-one major LIS (Library and Information Science) journals, using the machine learning (ML) approach to categorize the research methods used by LIS scholars. The findings of this study are significant. Firstly, there has been a shift in the research strategy from conceptual research (e.g., "Theoretical approach") to empirical research (e.g., "Interview") in LIS investigations over the past 31 years. Secondly, the research topics explored by LIS scholars during this period have moved from system-centered issues (e.g., "Information retrieval/models and algorithms") to user-centered topics (e.g., "Information services "). Thirdly, the study revealed dynamic and revealing relationships between the 18 research topics identified in the study and the 16 research methods commonly adopted in the LIS field. These dynamic relationships can be visualized by year and longitudinally via an interactive map created in this study.

Characteristics of LIS research articles affecting their citation impact

The paper analyzes the citation impact of Library and Information Science (LIS) research articles published in 31 leading international LIS journals in 2015. The main research question is: to what degree do authors’ disciplinary composition in association with topic, methodology, and type of contribution affect their citation impact? The impact is analyzed in terms of the number of citations received and their authority, using outlier normalization and subfield normalization. Quantitative content analysis is used to analyze article characteristics including topic, methodology, type of contribution, and the disciplinary composition of their author teams. The citations received by the articles are traced from 2015 to May 2021. Citing document authority is measured by the citations they had received up to May 2021. The overall finding was that authors’ disciplinary composition is significantly associated with citation scores. The differences in citation scores between disciplinary compositions appeared typically within information retrieval and scientific communication. In both topics LIS and computer science jointly received significantly higher citation scores than many disciplines like LIS alone or humanities in information retrieval; or natural sciences, medicine, or social sciences alone in scientific communication. The paper is original in reporting a joint analysis of content characteristics, authorship composition, and impact.

A mathematical analysis of the h-index and study of its correlation with some improved metrics: A conceptual approach

This article aims to establish the h-index in different mathematical aspects and measure the correlation of the h-index with other metrics using the bibliographic data of selected journals in the Library and Information Science (LIS) domain. Using the concept of relation and function, the h-index is expressed. Data collected from authors in three major LIS journals, including h-index, g-index, m-index, total citations and total publications, are analysed using correlation and regression analyses. The findings indicate a high level of relationship between h-index and g-index scores and m-index at starting year of publication. Conversely, a lower level of relationship between the h-index, g-index, starting year of publication, the total number of publications and the number of citations. This is an original study and will be of interest to the researchers of LIS who wants to know this performance indicator in different aspects, the dependency/independency of the h-index with other metrics, and the impact/performance of the three journals over time in terms of h-index, m-index, total citations and the number of publications. The study is limited to analysis of performance-and-citation-related measurements h-index, g-index, m-index, total citations, and the number of publications.

A study of the impact of interdisciplinary citation on the aging of library and information science

PurposeThis paper aims to explore the citation aging pattern of Library and Information Science (LIS) and further investigate the impact of interdisciplinary citation on the aging of scientific literature.Design/methodology/approachThe study examines LIS journal articles published between 2016 and 2020. Articles were retrieved from the Web of Science (WoS) and were organized using Scopus's discipline classification system. Citation aging patterns within LIS are described using literature aging indicators. The study examines the effect of interdisciplinary citations on the literature aging pattern by comparing the half-life of LIS literature and the median age of interdisciplinary citations.FindingsThe study results show that the citation aging rate of LIS in the last five years has been slow, and the rate of slowing down is decreasing. Interdisciplinary citations are sourced from various disciplines, focusing on computer science, social sciences and business. The proportion of self-citations is declining. The Reference Diversity Index (RDI) increases from 0.690 to 0.724 between 2016 and 2020. Currently, the median age of interdisciplinary citations is higher than the LIS's half-life. It has a diminishing effect on the citation aging rate. But the median age of interdisciplinary citations is decreasing. The interdisciplinary citation may contribute to the literature aging rate in the future. The effect of interdisciplinary citation on literature aging needs to be judged dialectically.Research limitations/implicationsThis study still has some limitations. Due to the wide variety of citation journals in LIS, there is no database to cover all journals, so it is impossible to match all citation journals with disciplines. Therefore, it is still feasible to analyze interdisciplinary citations based on the two-eight principle for large-scale data. This approach necessarily sacrifices some of the precision of the study. However, the results of this paper can still be helpful for the development of the discipline. In addition, LIS is a discipline with solid cross-cutting properties, and this paper concludes only with this interdisciplinary discipline in mind. It is necessary to test the applicability of the findings to other disciplines.Originality/valueThe study explores the impact of interdisciplinary citation on literature aging from a professional communication perspective. The results reveal underlying reasons for the aging of scientific literature. These findings further enrich the study of the effect of interdisciplinary communication.

An Investigation of Open Access Availability of Library and Information Science Research


 The study aims to investigate the Open Access (OA) availability of Library and Information Science (LIS) research and determine the extent to which research published in high-impact LIS journals is openly available to researchers via different OA routes. Using Google Scholar Metrics, ten core high-impact LIS journals were selected to collect the required data for the study. Bibliographic and citation details of each article published in these journals during 2016-2020 were extracted by searching the ISSN of each journal in the document search option of the Scopus database. The OA status of each article (Gold, Hybrid Gold, Green, and Bronze) was determined by querying the DOI API using the Simple Query Tool of Unpaywall. The findings show that LIS journals reviewed in this study demand $2500 to $3500 as an Article Processing Charge (APC). Almost all the journals have explicit self-archiving policies and lenient restrictions for making articles OA. However, accepted articles can be made available OA at designated Web locations after an embargo of 12months. The study’s findings indicate that 36.5 % of the total 5029 articles published during 2016-2020 in selected LIS journals were OA. Of the total OA articles, around 29 % were available through the publishers’ Website (Gold or Bronze OA), and 71 % were available through the repositories (Green OA). The average citation rate for OA articles is 13.37, which is higher than that of non-OA articles, showing a clear citation advantage for OA articles over non-OA articles.

The association of disciplinary background with the evolution of topics and methods in Library and Information Science research 1995–2015

AbstractThe paper reports a longitudinal analysis of the topical and methodological development of Library and Information Science (LIS). Its focus is on the effects of researchers' disciplines on these developments. The study extends an earlier cross‐sectional study (Vakkari et al., Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 2022a, 73, 1706–1722) by a coordinated dataset representing a content analysis of articles published in 31 scholarly LIS journals in 1995, 2005, and 2015. It is novel in its coverage of authors' disciplines, topical and methodological aspects in a coordinated dataset spanning two decades thus allowing trend analysis. The findings include a shrinking trend in the share of LIS from 67 to 36% while Computer Science, and Business and Economics increase their share from 9 and 6% to 21 and 16%, respectively. The earlier cross‐sectional study (Vakkari et al., Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 2022a, 73, 1706–1722) for the year 2015 identified three topical clusters of LIS research, focusing on topical subfields, methodologies, and contributing disciplines. Correspondence analysis confirms their existence already in 1995 and traces their development through the decades. The contributing disciplines infuse their concepts, research questions, and approaches to LIS and may also subsume vital parts of LIS in their own structures of knowledge production.

What are you reading? From core journals to trendy journals in the Library and Information Science (LIS) field

In this study, we present an objective, replicable methodology to identify trendy journals in any consolidated discipline. Trendy journals are those most read by authors who are currently publishing within the scope of the discipline. Trendy journal lists differ from consolidated lists of top core journals; the latter are very stable over time, mainly reflecting reputational factors, whereas the former reveal current influences not yet captured by studies based on bibliometric indicators or expert surveys. We apply our methodology to identify trendy journals among 167 titles indexed in the Web of Science category of the Information Science & Library Science (LIS) research area. Our list of trendy journals represents the most influential journals nowadays in the LIS discipline, challenging to some extent the core LIS journal list and journal category lists ordered by citations (e.g., by the Journal Impact Factor). Our results show that Scientometrics is the journal that bears the most influence on current production when not corrected for journal size and that Quantitative Science Studies—a small, relatively new journal not yet assigned a Journal Impact Factor nor present on any list of core LIS journals—is the journal that has shown the most significant recent influence when controlling for size.

Rhetorical structure parallels research topic in LIS articles: a temporal bibliometrics examination

PurposeThe effectiveness of rhetorical structure is essential to communicate key messages in research articles (RAs). The interdisciplinary nature of library and information science (LIS) has led to unclear patterns and practice of using rhetorical structures. Understanding how RAs are constructed in LIS to facilitate effective scholarly communication is important. Numerous studies investigated the rhetorical structure of RAs in a range of disciplines, but LIS articles have not been well studied.Design/methodology/approachIn this study, the authors encoded rhetorical structures to 2,216 articles in the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology covering a period from 2001 to 2018 with the approaches of co-word analysis and visualization. The results show that the predominant rhetorical structures used by LIS researchers follow the sequence of Introduction-Literature Review-Methodology-Result-Discussion-Conclusion (ILMRDC).FindingsThe authors' temporal examination reveals the shifts of evolutionary pattern of rhetorical structure in 2008 and 2014. More importantly, the authors' study demonstrates that rhetorical structures have varied greatly across research areas in LIS community. For example, scholarly communication and scientometrics studies tend to exclude literature review in articles.Originality/valueThe present paper offers a first systematic examination of how rhetorical structures are used in a representative sample of a LIS journal, especially from a temporal perspective.

Characteristics of scholarly journals published in non‐English‐speaking countries: An analysis of Library and Information Science SCOPUS journals

AbstractAlthough regional journals publish high‐quality research in diverse languages, research published in non‐English‐speaking countries (NESC) tends to have lower international visibility. By outlining the characteristics of SCOPUS journals published in NESC, this study aimed to inform regional scholarly communities interested in internationalizing their journals. A list of 294 SCOPUS journals in the Library and Information Science (LIS) field was extracted from the SCOPUS database; 39.12% of SCOPUS LIS journals (115 journals) were published in NESC. After excluding journals published in English‐speaking countries as well as journals published by international commercial publishers, this study analysed the characteristics of 62 journals. Forty‐eight (77.42%) of the 62 analysed journals were open access (OA) journals, and 37 (77.08%) of which were diamond OA journals. Although journals from NESC had relatively lower impact, journals that primarily used English (journal homepage, specified manuscript language) had higher impact than non‐English journals. This article discusses the importance of supporting OA (including diamond) journals to ensure international access of NESC journals, the limitations of this study, including relying on the SCOPUS LIS journals and quantitative analysis, and an agenda for future research regarding the internationalization of regional journals.

The association between Mendeley early readership and later citations in library and information science journals

Altmetrics indicators are useful for assessing the impact of research and have been increasingly used alongside traditional citations in recent years. Mendeley provides readership statistics which give an early indicator of the impact of research outputs. This study aimed to investigate how Mendeley early readership indicator was associated with later citations across nine selected library and information science (LIS) journals. This study examined bibliographic data of 9 LIS journals extracted from the Scopus database over a 17 months period from June 2019 to November 2020. Data were extracted using Webometric Analyst. Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient was used to characterize the relationship between these two variables. The number of readers per paper, and of each journal are described using mean, standard deviation, frequency, and geometric mean. Readership growth was increased in all selected journals, but citation growth was unstable in most of the journals. Early readership statistics positively correlated with early citation analysis in all journals except the Journal of Educational Media and Library Science, which had a weaker positive correlation. The correlation between early readership and later citation numbers varied, with some journals being moderately positive and some weakly positive.

Largest contribution to LIS by external disciplines as measured by the characteristics of research articles

The paper analyses Library and Information Science (LIS) articles published in leading international LIS journals based on their authors’ disciplinary backgrounds. The study combines content analysis of articles with authors’ affiliation analysis. The main research question is: Are authors’ disciplinary backgrounds associated with choice of research topics and methods in LIS articles? The study employs a quantitative content analysis of articles published in 30 + scholarly LIS journals in 2015, focusing on research topics and methods. The articles are also assigned to three disciplinary categories based on authors’ affiliations: External (no authors from LIS institutions), Internal (all authors from LIS institutions), and Mixed (some authors from LIS institutions, some from outside). The association of articles’ disciplinary categories with article research topics and methods is analysed quantitatively. Most research contributions to LIS come from external articles (57%). However, LIS scholars have a clear majority in research on L&I services and institutions (68%), while external scholars dominate the contributions in Information retrieval (73%) and Scientific communication (Scientometrics, 69%). Internal articles tend to have an intermediary’s (29%) or end-user’s (22%) viewpoint on information dissemination while the external ones have developer’s viewpoint (27%) or no dissemination viewpoint (49%). Among research strategies, survey (29%) and concept analysis (23%) dominate internal articles, survey (28%) and citation analysis (19%) dominate mixed articles, and survey (20%) and citation analysis (19%) dominate external articles. The application profiles of research strategies varied somewhat between disciplinary categories and main topics. Consequently, the development of LIS in the areas of Information retrieval, Information seeking, and Scientific communication seems highly dependent on the contribution of other disciplines. As a small discipline, LIS may have difficulties in responding to the challenges of other disciplines interested in research questions in these three areas.

Disciplinary contributions to research topics and methodology in Library and Information Science—Leading to fragmentation?

AbstractThe study analyses contributions to Library and Information Science (LIS) by researchers representing various disciplines. How are such contributions associated with the choice of research topics and methodology? The study employs a quantitative content analysis of articles published in 31 scholarly LIS journals in 2015. Each article is seen as a contribution to LIS by the authors' disciplines, which are inferred from their affiliations. The unit of analysis is the article‐discipline pair. Of the contribution instances, the share of LIS is one third. Computer Science contributes one fifth and Business and Economics one sixth. The latter disciplines dominate the contributions in information retrieval, information seeking, and scientific communication indicating strong influences in LIS. Correspondence analysis reveals three clusters of research, one focusing on traditional LIS with contributions from LIS and Humanities and survey‐type research; another on information retrieval with contributions from Computer Science and experimental research; and the third on scientific communication with contributions from Natural Sciences and Medicine and citation analytic research. The strong differentiation of scholarly contributions in LIS hints to the fragmentation of LIS as a discipline.

Journal packing density of Library and Information Science journals published across Asia

The purpose of the study is to compute the Journal Packing Density (JPD) i.e. the average research articles published in each volume or each issue of a research journal. Library and Information Science (LIS) journals published across Asia and indexed in Scopus during the period 2015 to 2019 were taken as samples. The study is based on secondary data retrieved from SCImago Journal and Country Ranking (SJCR), which includes the journals and country scientific indicators developed from the information contained in the Scopus database. In all, 14 LIS journals were identified from Asia. It was found that there are 51 sovereign nations in Asia, and 43 (84.31%) countries are actively undertaking research in LIS and only 8 (18.60%) countries are publishing LIS journals. India and Taiwan are the two leading countries in the region publishing 3 journals each. In all, 1558 articles were published by 14 LIS journals across Asia from 2015 through 2019 in 58 volumes with a JPD of 26.86 articles per journal per volume. Apart from these, research deficit in terms of journals and research articles has also been computed alongside a brief overview on how JPD of a journal can help in identifying the possibility of its predatory nature.

Publishing international library and information science journals: The changing landscape

This study aimed to examine the publication trends of Scimago Journal & Country Rank (SJR)-indexed library and information science (LIS) journals by examining publication share growth by country and region. For this study, we used LIS journals indexed in the SJR in 2000, 2010, and 2020. The results showed that the most frequent publishers of SJR-indexed LIS journals are large commercial publishers. The top three publishers since 2000 were Taylor & Francis, Emerald, and Springer Nature, despite their publication share among SJR-indexed journals declining since this period. The top three countries in journal publishing were the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. As the large commercial publishers have established themselves in these countries, the publication shares of these countries have also declined slightly because of the slowing growth rate of their publishers. Similarly, publication shares in both Northern America and Western Europe have declined slightly since 2000. However, the large commercial publishers, based mainly in the United Kingdom and the United States, are likely to take the lead in publishing SJR-indexed international LIS journals over the next decade. The results suggest that publishers from non-Western countries will need to publish significantly more international LIS journals indexed in the major databases to achieve a significant publication share. In conclusion, more innovative ways to support journals published in non-Western countries are needed in order to meet the essential selection criteria of the Scopus and Web of Science journal indexes.

Predicting access mode of multidisciplinary and library and information sciences journals using machine learning

Academics and librarians might want to identify whether a journal is open access (OA) or subscription-based. While indexes and digital libraries might provide such information for known collections, it is possible that the access mode of a journal or body of journals might be unknown a priori. In this short analysis, a machine learning-based method is used to classify a journal’s access mode, OA or subscription, using its CiteScore and Journal Impact Factor (JIF). Using an initial pool of 91 multidisciplinary journals with a CiteScore, 38 journals with both a JIF and a CiteScore were selected (24 = OA; 14 = subscription). Using a data mining tool (Orange), ten machine learning models were applied (k nearest neighbor (kNN), Tree, support vector machine (SVM), Random forest, Neural network, Naïve Bayes, Logistic regression, Adaptive boosting (Adaboost)), Gradient Boosting (Scikit-learn) (GBS) and Gradient Boosting (catboost) (GBC). Adaboost, GBS and GBC showed the highest (100%) precision, sensitivity, and specificity. The 3 models correctly classify the access mode with zero error. The 3 optimum models were validated using then to predict the access mode of 54 (7 = OA; 47 = subscription) library and information science (LIS) journals and Adaboost and GBS gave perfect results with no misclassification. With these model, the access mode of multidisciplinary and LIS journals can be accurately and correctly predicted using only JIF-CiteScore data. Libraries in low-resource settings will benefit from the implementation of this research by designing a decision support system for the selection of journals.

A Comparison of Q Index Ranked Journals: Library and Information Science Productivity and Research Trends (2011-2020)

Publishing in the prestigious research avenues is considerable important for the researchers and academicians. However, selecting the right journal to suit the research topic and quality of research is a tiresome task. Studying the nature of the research published in differently ranked journals is important to understand the difference of research and publication trends. This study aims to examine a differences and similarities of the research published in the Q1 and Q4 ranked Library and Information Science (LIS). A total 21,437 documents were selected from WoS Q1 and Q4 category LIS journals for this study. Then the data of Q1 and Q4 journals was separately accessed, analyzed and compared with different tool including MS Access, MS Excel, Gaphi, Biblioshiny, and VOS Viewer software. We found significant differences in the LIS research themes and publication trends between the Q1 and Q4 category publications. The Q1 journals are publishing on emerging bibliometrics, technology related topics like social media, information systems, machine learning etc., innovating practices and research. While, Q4 journals mostly publish about academic libraries, information seeking, literacy and behavioral research. Topical evaluation reveled citation analysis, bibliometrics, social media, innovation and collaboration as emerging topics in both Q1 and Q4 category journals but differ in terms of total publications order. This is the first study to the best knowledge or understanding by the authors to examining the similarities and differences in a Q1 and Q4 ranked LIS journals related to the research trends, publishing institution, individuals, countries, etc. It also identifies and compares the Q1 and Q4 journal's major research topics, topical evolution over years, most citied research themes that can also be considered a novel contribution to the field. This study provides a holistic overview of topical evolution and emerging research foci for the LIS researchers, especially early career researchers, academicians, and research students to make right decisions for research topic, publication avenues, collaborators, and potential areas of interest to attract research grants. This method of comparing category-based research trends can assist library practitioners working for research support and information literacy to assist their users in the selection of topics for potential publications and publication avenues to create impact.

Women authorship in library and information science journals from 1981 to 2020: Is equitable representation being attained?

This study examines the proportion of women as first authors in major library and information science (LIS) journals over the years 1981–2020. Author name and year data were collected for 10 LIS journals – five that are associated more with library topics and five with information science topics – and analysed using the genderize.io tool. Both general trends over time and comparisons of information science versus library science journals are presented. The findings indicate significant growth in the proportion of women authors among the LIS journals, but primarily concentrated only among the library science journals, with information science journals falling well behind. Representation of women authors (~60%) still lags well below the overall representation of women in librarianship (~80%). These findings suggest that there is still considerable growth needed to decrease the gender gap among authorship in top LIS journals.