Bibliometric Analysis of DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology

Bibliometric Analysis of DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology

S. Thanuskodi
Copyright: © 2012 |Pages: 10
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61350-335-5.ch022
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Abstract

This chapter presents a bibliometric analysis of the journal, DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology, for the period between 2006 and 2010. The data were downloaded from the journal’s website. The analysis covers mainly the number of articles, authorship pattern, subject, distribution of articles, average number of references per articles, forms of documents cited, year distribution of cited journals, et cetera. Findings of the studies point towards the merits and weakness of the journal which are helpful for its further development. The result showed that out of 199 articles, 116 (58.29%) articles were contributed by joint authors while the rest 83 (41.71%) articles were contributed by single author. The study reveals that most of the contributions are from India with 93.97%, and the remaining 6.03% were from foreign authors.
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Introduction

Periodicals are the primary source of information and an important media for communication. They play a major role for communicating the latest research findings and publishing the articles containing the current development in any field of knowledge. Research is a prolonged process, aiming at discovering the truth and is a means for acquiring knowledge about any natural or human phenomena. Research in all fields is growing at a faster rate and particularly the field like Library and Information Science is advancing. This is due to the gradual change in the trends of research. In the process of identifying the research trends in a field, it is essential to analyse the various patterns that are evident in the literature in that field. Due to information explosion and multidisciplinary growth of subjects, it is very difficult to analyse the various patterns that are evident in the field. The bibliometric studies, which are mostly related to quantification of items and their pattern of distributions are useful in understanding some information phenomena and may help in planning many of the library activities. The first recorded study of Bibliometric topic was in 1971 by Coles and Eales with the ‘Statistical analysis of literature on history of comparative anatomy; which served as a model for applying the counting technique in the evaluation of international activities (Cole and Eales,1971). Alan Pritchard first introduced the term Bibliometrices’ in 1969 to mean ‘the applications of mathematics and statistical methods to books and other media of communications (Pritchard,1969).

The very basic attribute of bibliometrics governing the relationships between information items and activities has thus made librarians and statisticians to conduct the bibliometric studies. Hence, we are witnessing large number of bibliometric studies for over the last two decades. DESIDOC Journal of Library and Information Technology have been very prominent in the context publishing academic scholarly work relating to Library and Information Science and other related disciplines in India. This is why the author considered it very necessary to conduct a bibliometric study on the citation analysis of the Journal. In the light of the above, the present study was undertaken in order to know the nature and contents of articles in the DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology.

Review of Literature

Tiew (1997) conducted a survey on single journal bibliometric studies and reported 102 papers published on the topic all across the world by the year 1997. Zainab, Ani, and Anuar (2009) revealed that, there are an estimated total number of about 189 single journal studies reported in published literature. Contextually, some of the recent studies on this area of research have been reviewed. In the aforesaid direction Mote and Deshmukh (1996) in their study on Annals of Library Science and Documentation found that journals are most cited form of communication amongst the library and information scientists and the source journal is the most cited publication. Shokeen and Kaushik (2004) in their study on bibliometric analysis of Indian Journal of Plant Physiology found that journal articles are predominant with 81% of total citations. The ratio of author self citation to total citations is 1:16.65. The ratio of Journal Self Citation to total citation is 1:31.91. The results also highlight that 398 citations are below 10 years old, whereas 358 citations are below 20 years but more than 10 years old. Jena (2006) in his study on bibliometric analysis of Indian Journal of Fibre and Textile Research, 1996 – 2004' revealed various details on the trend of publications of this journal. Biswas, Roy, and Sen (2007) conducted a bibliometric study on Economic Botany from 1994-2003 and revealed that among the citations, books accounted for 59%, and articles 41% and e-citations were quite negligible. Furthermore, they found that the highest numbers of contributions were emanated from academic institutions such as universities.

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