Co-author Weighting in Bibliometric Methodology and Subfields of a Scientific Discipline

Information literacy and research support services in academic libraries: A bibliometric analysis from 2001 to 2020

This article attempted to examine research support services, information services, print collections, digital resources and information literacy using bibliometric analysis from 2001 to 2020. The main aim was to consolidate the published studies on the research support services in academic libraries in the Web of Science (WoS) indexed documents. However, there has been a lack of quantitative measurements on the subject. Thus, we used the bibliometric method and found a total of 4079 published documents. The study findings revealed that the topic of ‘information literacy and library’ was on top with a total number of 2168 publications, 3047 articles as a type of published documents, 3662 publications in English and a considerable increase in publications as per years were found. The top author named Fourie I was found with 106 citations and 22 articles started in 2001. Similarly, the University of Illinois found on top organisations out of 2609, United States on top out of 113 countries and information literacy as a keyword out of 6179. Furthermore, the Journal of Academic Librarianship placed at top of sources out of 726 and the National Institutes of Health NIH USA as a top funding agency.

Bilateral Co-authorship Indicators Based on Fractional Counting

Purpose

In this contribution we provide two new co-authorship indicators based on fractional counting.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on the idea of fractional counting we reflect on what should be an acceptable indicator for co-authorship between two entities. From this reflection we propose an indicator, the co-authorship score, denoted as cs, using the harmonic mean. Dividing this new indicator by the classical co-authorship indicator based on full counting, leads to a co-authorship intensity indicator.

Findings

We show that the indicators we propose have many necessary or at least highly desirable properties for a proper cs-score. It is pointed out that the two new indicators can be used for countries, but also for institutions and other pairs of entities. A small example shows the feasibility of the co-authorship score and the co-authorship intensity indicator.

Research limitations

The indicators are not yet tested in real cases.

Practical implications

As the notions of co-authorship and collaboration have many aspects, we think that our contribution may help policy management to take yet another aspect into account as part of a multi-faceted description of research outcomes.

Originality/value

The indicators we propose cover yet another aspect of co-authorship.