Public libraries and the social web: a review and analysis of the existing literature

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to update Carlsson (2015), which examined the research on public libraries and the social web published from 2006 to 2012, and it also intends to go beyond Carlsson (2015) by including six additional variables.

Design/methodology/approach

Literature searches were performed against Web of Science Core Collection and EBSCOhost databases. By adapting Carlsson’s (2015) three level key phrase searches, which were then complemented by chain searching, a total of 60 articles were identified and analyzed.

Findings

In comparison to Carlsson (2015), this study shows that the recent research, published between 2012 and 2018, leans toward a more general acceptance of the social web’s usage to improve the services provided by public libraries; that the public library is rarely premised to be in a state of crisis; and that the social web is mostly perceived as having a complementary relationship with librarianship and library services. The findings from analyzing the six additional variables are also presented.

Research limitations/implications

The findings from this study provide LIS professionals a greater understanding of where the research stands on the topic at present, and this study also identifies gaps in the literature to offer insight into the areas where future research can be directed.

Originality/value

Given the continued popularity of social web usage among public libraries, this study examines the literature published on the social web in the public library context between 2012 and 2018 and offers implications and future research suggestions.

Researching public libraries and the social web, 2006-2012

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to sketch out the general tendencies, gaps and opportunities within the body of research studying the social web as a new facet of public librarianship in order to delineate the findings so far and suggest directions for future research.

Design/methodology/approach

– Literature searches were conducted through the Library, Information Science and Technology Abstract database, The ISI Web of Science database and the Directory of Open Access Journals. A selection process in two steps resulted in 44 articles that were subjected to a two-stage analysis and coding process: a coding analysis based on the stated aims or research questions of each article and analysis of the articles as clusters around a shared theme.

Findings

– The articles, exhibiting a richness and diversity in research directions, are dispersed in a wide range of journals and the topics addressed cover a variety of segments within Library and Information Science. Despite this diversity, research exploring the consequences of the social web for public libraries in situ and considerations of research on the broader political economic conditions of the public library institution in late modernity is largely lacking. Furthermore, the status of librarianship and the professional expertise of librarians, in light of the social web, need to be further addressed.

Originality/value

– The rising interest and investment of library professionals into the practices, principles and technologies of the social web calls for further studies into the consequences of this ongoing development for public library services. This paper gives a preliminary overview of the research done 2006-2012 and identifies gaps in the literature that may serve as a point of departure for future research.

Web 2.0 applications in medicine: trends and topics in the literature

Background

The World Wide Web has changed research habits, and these changes were further expanded when “Web 2.0” became popular in 2005. Bibliometrics is a helpful tool used for describing patterns of publication, for interpreting progression over time, and the geographical distribution of research in a given field. Few studies employing bibliometrics, however, have been carried out on the correlative nature of scientific literature and Web 2.0.

Objective

The aim of this bibliometric analysis was to provide an overview of Web 2.0 implications in the biomedical literature. The objectives were to assess the growth rate of literature, key journals, authors, and country contributions, and to evaluate whether the various Web 2.0 applications were expressed within this biomedical literature, and if so, how.

Methods

A specific query with keywords chosen to be representative of Web 2.0 applications was built for the PubMed database. Articles related to Web 2.0 were downloaded in Extensible Markup Language (XML) and were processed through developed hypertext preprocessor (PHP) scripts, then imported to Microsoft Excel 2010 for data processing.

Results

A total of 1347 articles were included in this study. The number of articles related to Web 2.0 has been increasing from 2002 to 2012 (average annual growth rate was 106.3% with a maximum of 333% in 2005). The United States was by far the predominant country for authors, with 514 articles (54.0%; 514/952). The second and third most productive countries were the United Kingdom and Australia, with 87 (9.1%; 87/952) and 44 articles (4.6%; 44/952), respectively. Distribution of number of articles per author showed that the core population of researchers working on Web 2.0 in the medical field could be estimated at approximately 75. In total, 614 journals were identified during this analysis. Using Bradford’s law, 27 core journals were identified, among which three (Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, Journal of Medical Internet Research, and Nucleic Acids Research) produced more than 35 articles related to Web 2.0 over the period studied. A total of 274 words in the field of Web 2.0 were found after manual sorting of the 15,878 words appearing in title and abstract fields for articles. Word frequency analysis reveals “blog” as the most recurrent, followed by “wiki”, “Web 2.0”, ”social media”, “Facebook”, “social networks”, “blogger”, “cloud computing”, “Twitter”, and “blogging”. All categories of Web 2.0 applications were found, indicating the successful integration of Web 2.0 into the biomedical field.

Conclusions

This study shows that the biomedical community is engaged in the use of Web 2.0 and confirms its high level of interest in these tools. Therefore, changes in the ways researchers use information seem to be far from over.