Bradford’s zone to LIS publications published in collection building journal from 2009-2012: a citation study

Abstract

Purpose – The present paper aims at analyzing the research output performance of library and information science (LIS) professionals. Citation analysis of all the journal articles published in the Collection Building journal during 2009-2012 is carried out. Design/methodology/approach – The data for this study were drawn from a selective sample of a free e-journal, i.e. Collection Building, available through the Kuvempu University Web site without subscription or registration. A total of 91 articles published during 2009 to 2012 with 1,302 citations. The analysis cover mainly the number of articles, authorship pattern, subject-wise distribution of articles, average number of references per articles, forms of documents cited, rank list of journals, Bradford’s law. Findings – The study reveals that journals (53.84 per cent of citations) are the most preferred sources of information used by the researchers in the field of LIS. It is followed by Web resources with 24.27 per cent, these two together constitute 78.11 per cent of total citations and remaining 21.89 per cent of citations from books, proceedings, theses, reports and gazetteer. Collection Building (USA) has ranked first with 68 (9.70 per cent) citations. Further, Bradford’s law of scattering was applied. It is observed that major citations are from journal literature. In addition, more cited materials were contributed by multi-authors, and degree of collaboration is 0.44. Research limitations/implications – The paper presents a sense of the importance of LIS research, and as such, informs the community and researchers involved in the citation analysis. Originality/value – The outcome of the study is an original research work with citation analysis of LIS publications. The study highlights the information materials available and used by researchers in the field of LIS, and those that need to be added for a healthy collection.