Assessing the literature of knowledge management (KM) in the field of library and information science
| Date | 01 March 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/IDD-06-2018-0021 |
| Published date | 01 March 2019 |
| Pages | 35-41 |
| Author | Khurshid Ahmad,Zheng JianMing,Muhammad Rafi |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Library & information services,Lending,Document delivery,Collection building & management,Stock revision,Consortia |
Assessing the literature of knowledge
management (KM) in the field of library
and information science
Khurshid Ahmad, Zheng JianMing and Muhammad Rafi
Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this study is to provide a bibliometric analysis of knowledge management (KM) literature published in the field of library
and information science. KM is a systematic process of acquisition, extraction, organization and dissemination of knowledge in any organization.
This study will help identify trends, emerging concepts and innovations in this particular field.
Design/methodology/approach –The data set of the study consists of 6,088 published documents the authors obtained from the ISI Web of
Science database during 1900 and 2017. The analysis of literature about the library and information science consisted of five categories including
productive institutions, prolific authors, annual publications, citations and highly cited articles. The documents included in this study include
research papers, conference papers, reviews, book reviews and editorials.
Findings –The study found that the USA leads the world regarding the number of research publications in the area of KM in the field of library and
information science. Considering the publication period, 2007, 2012 and 2016-2017 are the most productive years regarding publications in this
particular field; the number of citations has been increasing over the years. The study also found that Nanyang Polytechnic University is the mos t
productive research institution and Blanca Martins from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia is the most pro lific researcher in this specificfield.
Originality/value –This study provides a detailed bibliometric analysis of KM literature published in the field of library and information science.
This study is an excellent example for researchers who are interested in conducting bibliometric studies.
Keywords ISI Web of Science, Information science, Bibliometric analysis, Research productivity, Knowledge management, Library science
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
There is a rapid growth of published literature in many fields.
To help researchers learn about a field quickly, Singh (2009)
recommends providing a bibliometric analysis of research in
that particular field. In this perspective, we conducted a
bibliometric study of literature related to knowledge
management (KM) in the field of library and information
science. Martelo-Landroguez and Cepeda-Carri
on (2016)
define KM as the process of creating, acquiring organizingand
disseminating the repository of knowledge within an
organization. Thanuskodi (2010) elaborates that the origin of
the term “bibliometrics”originated from two Latin and Greek
words “Bibliography”and “Targets”, which is the application
of science index. The bibliographicstudy is a criticalpart in the
field of library and information science. Shea et al. (2015)
revealed that metrological analysis is widely used to assess the
qualitative and quantitative analysisof specific areas of interest
publications. In today’sdigital environment, bibliometric study
has been often conducted to analyze the literature and explore
the research trends in any field. Mongeonand Paul-Hus (2016)
surveyed articles in two primary databases of scholarly
publications –ISI Web of Science and Scopus –which include
numerous journals, conference proceedings and other types of
publications. The dominated fields in these databases include
natural sciences and engineering and the primary language of
scholarly publications is English. Rey-Martí et al. (2016)
conducted a bibliometric analysis of social entrepreneurship in
the field of management science and analyzed the researcher’s
performance statistically. Their study also consisted of the
factors including productivity of annual publications, citation,
highly cited articles and research productivity of institutions
and authors’productivity. The current study focused on the
analysis of research publications we obtained from ISI indexed
databases from 1900 to 2017. In thiscontext, Sethi and Panda
(2012) reported that the researchers in the field of library and
information science are researching literature metrology to
evaluate the results through the application of specific subject
areas. A bibliometric study has the potentialto pave the way for
identifying the trends of research and developmental stages of
the subject (He et al.,2012;White et al.,2016). Thus, we
would like to use bibliometricsas a tool to explore the subfield,
developmental stages, historical developments and the
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on
Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/2398-6247.htm
Information Discovery and Delivery
47/1 (2019) 35–41
© Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 2398-6247]
[DOI 10.1108/IDD-06-2018-0021]
Received 20 June 2018
Revised 12 August 2018
2 October 2018
8 October 2018
15 October 2018
2 November 2018
9 November 2018
13 November 2018
Accepted 13 November 2018
35
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