A multifaceted portrait of a library and information science journal: the case of the Journal of Information Science

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of a journal in the field of library and information science by means of a variety of bibliometric methods. The journal selected is Journal of Information Science (JIS). The methods are mainly publication and citation analyses, including a journal co-citation analysis, self-citation analyses, an overlap analysis, as well as Lotka’ s law regarding authorship characteristics. This variety of methods provides a multifaceted image. The analyses are focused on the last 25 years, since the basis of research primarily is ISI’s citation databases and LISA, in which JIS has been indexed since 1979. The library and information science journal is pictured by a catalogue of different methodologies as a supplement to Journal Impact Factor (JIF), the usual tool of journal evaluation in measuring the impact of a journal. The areas of study are the visibility of the journal in databases, the pattern of authorship, the pattern of self-citations, internalization and scientific impact. The methods employed in analysing JIS supplement and sustain other analyses in the field of library and information science journals.