Publishing Trends in Library and Information Sciences Across European Countries and Institutions

A bibliometric study on library and information science and information systems literature during 2010–2019

Purpose

Studying the nature of research progress in interrelated research domains is important for evaluating the research productivity and to understand the current trends of the area of research. This study aims to examine a research domain that combines library and information science with information systems (IS).

Design/methodology/approach

Quartile 1 journals that cover both subject domains in SCImago were selected for the study. Bibliographic records of the publications during 2010 and 2019 were retrieved from the Scopus database. VOSviewer data visualization tool was used to perform citation, coauthorship, bibliographic coupling, cocitation and co-occurrence analysis. In addition, descriptive and inferential statistics were exploited.

Findings

The absence of a consistent association between the number of documents authored and the number of citations received by a researcher was an important finding of the study. The strong association of authors regardless of the different topics they researched and the trend of increasing interest on collaborative research were also highlighted. Moreover, the authors who received the highest number of citations were not always the first authors of the documents which received the most citations. The documents published in information management, information theory and IS journals attained the most citations. The journals, institutions and countries with the highest number of documents and citations were also revealed by the research. Electrical engineering departments showed a higher research productivity, while they were utilized more compared to that of other departments. IS and management, information theory, communication, information retrieval, geographic-based IS and bioinformatics were the six major research areas of the considered domain.

Originality/value

This is the first study related to examining the research progress in a combined subject domain using multiple aspects including, individual performance, institutional progress, geographical contribution and so on. Identifying the major research areas in the combined subject domain can also be considered a novel contribution to the field.

Library and information science research in the Arab World: a bibliometric analysis 1951–2021

Purpose

This study aims to investigate the research productivity of library and information science (LIS) authors affiliated with the 22 countries of the Arab League. It also identifies the top countries, organizations, authors, journals, natures of collaboration, and frequently used keywords in LIS research in the Arab world.

Design/methodology/approach

Bibliometric methods were used to evaluate the research performance of the authors affiliated with library organizations in the Arab region. The Elsevier Scopus database was selected for data retrieval. A comprehensive search strategy was adopted to retrieve 863 publications contributed by LIS authors affiliated with the Arab countries. VOS viewer, Biblioshiny, BiblioAnalyitics, Microsoft Access and Microsoft Excel were used for data visualization and analysis.

Findings

This paper presents the dynamics and the state of the LIS research in the Arab region published between 1951 and 2021. The results of the study have highlighted an upward trend in the growth of the publications, especially in the past four years. The largest number of studies were published in the year 2020. The country-wise analysis ranked Kuwait and Saudi Arabia as the top LIS research producing countries with five and four researchers, respectively. The Kuwait University, the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals and the Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University were the three most productive organizations. Academic libraries, social media, bibliometrics, information-seeking behavior, information literacy and knowledge management were identified as the major areas of interest for the researchers. Internet and open access were topics that had gained recent popularity, while the digital library, research data management, green librarianship, link data, cloud computing, library leadership, library automation and artificial intelligence were identified as areas requiring further attention. Furthermore, the single-author pattern was found to be the most preferred pattern.

Practical implications

The findings of this study would help prospective researchers in choosing the neglected areas of research that require further investigation. They would also help policymakers in identifying factors that need more attention and allocation of research funds.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first comprehensive bibliometric study that presents a holistic picture of the LIS research in the Arab region.