Journal of Annals of Library and Information Studies 2012: a Bibliometric Study

Journal of Annals of Library and Information Studies 2012: A Bibliometric Study

KR. Senthilkumar* Dr.A.Ganesan ** * Research Scholar in Library and Information Science Bharathiar University, Coimbatore ** Director Library/Professor and Head, Department of Library and Information Science, PRIST University, Vallam, Thanjavur- 613 403. Tamilnadu, India

ABSTRACT:- This study aims at analysing the research output performance of Library and Information Studies on Library science subjects. The analysis cover mainly the number of articles, authorship pattern, subject wise distribution of articles, average number of references per articles, year wise distribution etc.

KEYWORDS: - Bibliometrics. JALIS, Information Science, Authorship Pattern, Analysis Study

INTRODUCTION The term “Bibliometrics” was first coined by Pritchard in 1963, and its usage and practice can be traced back to the second decade of this century. A pioneer example of a bibliometric study was a ‘statistical analysis of the literature. Bibliometrics is a quantitative assessment of man’s cultural progress, including science and technology as may be revealed through bibliographic data. Bibliographic data are those that can be collected, derived or deciphered from different parameters as can be assigned to a document (Sen, Subir and Chatterjee, 1990). Bibliometrics is a type of research method used in library and information science. It utilizes quantitative analysis and statistics to describe patterns of publication within a given field or body of literature. Researchers may use bibliometric methods of evaluation to determine the influence of a single writer, for example, or to describe the relationship between two or more writers or works. One common way of conducting bibliometric research is to use the Library Science Citation Index, the Science Citation Index or the Arts and Humanities Citation Index to trace citations. Another major area of bibliometric research is the citation analyses. It is quite old branch of bibliometrics and involves the analyses and examination of an item's referring- documents. It is used to gauge the importance of one's work. Information scientists use citation analysis to quantitatively assess

1 the core journal titles; watershed publications in particular disciplines, interrelationships between authors from different institutions and schools of thought etc. Bibliometrics is a type of research method used in Library and information sciences. It is an emerging area of research in the LIS field. The quantitative analysis and statistics to describe patterns of publication within a given field of body of literature are utilized. Researchers use bibliometric methods of evaluation to determine the influence of a single author or to describe the relationship between two or more author’s works. Bibliometric studies can be used to study regional patterns of research, the extent of co- operation between research groups and national research profiles. The main derivatives of bibliometrics are: publication counts, citation counts, co-citation analysis, co-word analysis, scientific 'mapping' and citations in patents. The word 'bibliometric' has been derived from the Latin and Greek words 'biblio' and 'metrics' which refer to the application of mathematics to the study of bibliography. REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Bakri & Willett (2008) carried out bibliometric analysis of all the journal articles published in the MJLIS from 2001-2006. They compared the results with those obtained in an earlier study in, Tiew, et al. (2002) covering the period 1996-2000. The results showed that the number of publications had increased, with statistically significant changes in the types of article, in the numbers of references per article and in the lengths of the article.

Sam (2008) presented the results of an analysis of articles published in the Ghana Library Journal from 2000 to 2006. The majority of the items cited were journals followed by books and reports. Only four of the top twenty-two journals cited frequently were of African origin, the rest were European or US-based. The most researched subject area was academic libraries.

Verma, et al. (2007) deal with the analysis of 131 contributions of the journal entitled 'Annals of Library and Information Studies during 1999-2005. The study shows that most of the articles are contributed by single author and that most of the contributors are from New Delhi. Citation analysis reveals that journals are the most cited publications amongst the library and information scientists and the source journal, i.e. Annals of Library and Information Studies, is the most cited journal.

2 Barooah PK and Shrma NN, (2001) The author explain, the journal collection of the library of regional research laboratory Jorhat (RRCI) has been evaluated through a study of use of journals titles for publications of research by scientific community of the laboratory. Journals ranked on the basis of the use for individual groups and percentage of used journals.

Forms of Busheer, 1991-2001 is the most productive period of the author friends and relatives published his unpublished works even after his death in 1994. Out of the 62 works of Basher only 29 has been translated into English Majority of the works on Basher were published during 1990 – 94 i.e. towards last phase of this life.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:-

 To make an analysis of articles published in ALIS during the period 2012  To find out the subject area of the articles.  To find out the authorship pattern of articles published in Annals of Library and Information Studies. To find out the designations of authors.  To Calculate average number of articles per volume as well as average number of references per article  To find out the geographical area wise distribution articles.

METHODOLOGY:-

The methodology is used for this study is searching literature on ALIS. The journal is available in SVS College of Engineering, Coimbatoe. The data on articles are collected from

ALIS from the year 2012 for this study. Excel 2013 is prepared for the data analysis. Each volume of the journal was studied in order to ascertain number of articles. Further each article was studied in detail as to ascertain number of authors, geographical distribution of authors,

3 contribution of different authors etc. Each reference of the article was analyzed in order to ascertain the number of references.

ANNALS OF LIBRARY AND INFORMATION STUDIES:-

National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources (NISCAIR) came into existence on 30 September 2002 with the merger of National Institute of Science Communication (NISCOM) and Indian National Scientific Documentation Centre (INSDOC). Both NISCOM and INSDOC, the two premier institutes of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), were devoted to dissemination and documentation of S&T information. Annals of library and information studies ISSN No. 0975-2404 (Online); 0972- 5423 (Print) is a leading quarterly journal in Library and Information Studies publishing original papers, survey reports, reviews, short communications, and letters pertaining to library science, information science and computer applications in these fields. (Full text available online: www.niscair.res.in, paper may be submitted through online http://op.niscair.res.in )

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION:-

Table 1 given below shows the month wise distribution of articles in the journal. It shows that the number of articles has been in showing every month during the period of 2012. It is also clear that with total of 27 articles, the number of articles has been same from March and June 2012.

Table 1: Month-wise Distribution of Articles

Month No. of Articles Cumulative Percentage March 6 22 June 6 22 September 8 30 December 7 26 Total 27 100

AUTHORSHIP PATTERN:-

4 Table 2 shows the authorship pattern of articles during the period under study. It reveals that maximum 8 articles have been written by single author, followed by 7 by double authors and three or more authors. . It is also clear from the table that the number of articles has been decreasing as we proceed from articles written by single author. However single author contributions are 8, where as 7 are multiple author contributions.

Table 2: Authorship Pattern Month 1 2 3 More than 3 Total Author Authors Authors Authors March 4 1 1 6 June 1 3 2 6 September 2 2 2 2 8 December 2 2 1 2 7 Total 8 6 6 7 27

GEOGRAPHICAL AFFILIATION OF AUTHORS:- Table 3 showed that most of the contributions are from Indian sources with 33%, foreign contributions 30% and the rest 37% only from India.

Table 3: Geographical Affiliation of Authors S.No. Place Number of Rank Contributions 1 Iran 2 (4.08%) 4 2. Bangalore 1 (2.04%) 5 3. New Delhi 16 (33%) 1 4. Andhra 1(2.04%) 5 5. Sri lanka 1(2.04%) 5 6. Indore 1(2.04%) 5 7. Nigeria 10 (20.4%) 2 8. Arunachala 1(2.04%) 5 Pradesh 9. Himachal 1(2.04%) 5 Pradesh 10. Pune 1(2.04%) 5 11. Shilong 1(2.04%) 5 12. Assam 1(2.04%) 5 13. Kerala 3 (6.1%) 3 14. Haryana 1(2.04%) 5 15. Ahmadabad 3(6.1%) 3 16. Varanasi 1(2.04%) 5 17. Calcutta 1(2.04%) 5

5 18. Malaysia 2(4.08%) 4 19. Chandigarh 1(2.04%) 5 TOTAL 49 (100%)

ARTICLES AND REFERENCES:- Table 4 displays number of articles and references. It revealed that number of references as well as average number of references per article have been increasing June 2012, where as it gradually decreases in March 2012. However, average number of articles per volume comes out to be 15.16 and average numbers of references per article come out to be 68.42.

Table 4: Articles and references Month No. of. Articles No. of. References Average number of references per article March 6 91 15.16 June 6 139 23.16 September 8 108 13.5 December 7 116 16.6 Total 27 454 68.42

LENGTH OF ARTICLES:- Table 5 showed that the length of papers from 6 to 10 is more. The second least numbers of articles are 8 which are from 11 and more. 1 to 5 pages articles are rare

Table 5: Length of articles

Pages March June September December Total 1 - 5 2 1 3 6-10 4 5 3 4 16 11 and more 2 1 3 2 8 Total 6 6 8 7 27

CONCLUSION:-

NISCAIR Annals Library and Information Studies is print and online electronic journal in the field of Library and Information Science. A total of 27 papers are published in a time span of 2012. Single author contribution is 30% and multiple author contribution is 70%. There is trend towards author collaboration. Periodicals are the most cited references by authors. Annals of Library and Information Studies earlier published as Annals of Library and Documentation that brought out its maiden issue in the year 1952, is identified as one of the best referred journals in

6 the field of Library and information Science in India with a publishing history of 58 years. Due to its standard editorial policy, ALIS has felt its presence in the academic arena by bringing out quality publications that have been highly appreciated by teachers, students, research scholars and authors as well. Moreover, authors feel proud of having a rich publishing experience with ALIS. The study has depicted a nice portrait of ALIS which speaks volumes about the publication policy of this journal. Nevertheless, it has gradually promoted its value through its global readership as it is indexed in DOAJ as an open access journal. It is expected that ALIS will further grow its stature in the days ahead.

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